Royals Rejoice Ahead of Historic WAFLW Debut

The countdown is on for East Perth’s opening match in the WAFLW, an achievement years in the making.

Coach Jason Bloom is proud of the way the side has come together.

“This is one of the most significant milestones for the club to have a full talent pathway for male and female footballers in our district.

We can now facilitate talented athletes to play in the top state-based competition regardless of gender.

This can only grow the game and female participation for our community clubs and we hope to assist all of our district junior clubs to field full pathways for females,” Bloom said.

Of immediate concern is preparing a team to be competitive in the inaugural year.

“We’ve had the benefit of working towards this for 18 months.

We talent identified 105 players from the WAFLW and the PFL, including our own Rogers Cup squad prior to our submission even being approved.

Once it was announced the Reserves competition was being abolished, we also held a come try day which uncovered another handful of players.

In our exclusive player talk window we held over 70 player discussions.

Word of mouth from the playing group has helped draw players to the club and we have a great mix of senior experienced WAFLW players and emerging talent from the PFL who’ve also played a fair amount of footy,” he said.

Bloom’s coaching journey began leading his stepdaughter’s side at the Ellenbrook Dockers JFC, before he enjoyed several roles as part of the Junior Talent Pathway in boys and girls football.

“To be appointed the club’s inaugural WAFLW League Head Coach is a huge honour and I'm very humbled by the opportunity and trust the club has in me.

I committed to the club when I first came on board four years ago to deliver a holistic program and be a driving force in establishing its female pathway into a league program and now this has been achieved, I look forward to the challenges and opportunities coaching in the WAFLW and developing our program towards success.”

Pre-season training has taken a different look for the new squad.

“Our biggest focus areas in the pre-Christmas block were connection, culture and fundamentals to create a solid foundation and set the standard for the year to come.

Since then, we’ve started to incorporate game style into training while remaining focussed on connecting, building trust, belief and continuing skill development,” he said.

Bloom is mindful of the difficulties faced by West Perth and South Fremantle over the past two seasons, with both clubs failing to win a match in their opening year.

“Having joined the competition closely after these clubs we’ve been able to better understand the challenges ahead which influenced how we’ve recruited.

I would be naive to suggest we’re in a better position than either of those clubs, however I believe there will almost be a two tier comp and our best measuring sticks will be the Falcons and the Bulldogs.

Our KPI’s are not just based on wins and losses but we’ll celebrate the small wins along the way,” he said.

 East Perth plays its opening match of the 2023 WAFLW season against West Perth on Saturday March 11 at Leederville Oval.