GREATER Western Sydney coach Alan McConnell had a significant impact in his first season in charge, and his players are itching to see what he brings to his role in the third year of the NAB AFL Women's competition.
One of the most experienced minds in the game, McConnell guided the Giants from wooden-spooners in the first season of AFLW, to being within reach of a Grand Final appearance last year, before they eventually finished fourth after a disappointing loss to Brisbane in the last game of the season.
GWS started its 2019 campaign on Thursday night and began the first session of the year with an old-school 2km time trial, with the athletic Elle Bennetts taking the honours from noted runners Phoebe Monahan and Nicola Barr.
Star midfielder Jessica Dal Pos told AFL.com.au before the session she is looking forward to seeing how her coach can inspire the group in his second season.
"He's a mad scientist," she said with a laugh.
"You can't expect anything from him because he always blows you away, no matter what he's doing in any aspect of footy, or when he's getting to know us.
"I have no expectations, but I know he's going to push us out of our comfort zone and come up something absolutely hilarious at some point.
"We're just going to let him do his thing and try and hang on for the ride."
Vice-captain Alicia Eva echoed her teammates' thoughts on the coach and told AFL.com.au that while she expects McConnell's training to include plenty of laughs again over the pre-season, she also knows he will continue to demand high standards from his playing group, which is what improved its on field performances this year.
"Part of what makes Al such a great coach is that he invests in all of us individually and knows what's going on with us off the field," Eva said.
"Because he does do that, if he growls at us on the training track or on game day, we know it's coming from a good place, and that he just wants us to get the best out of ourselves.
"He also wants us to get success because we work bloody hard."
Dal Pos, who finished fourth in last year's best and fairest and is one of the team's star onballers, said the team has added some much-needed leg speed this year.
She said more pace across the ground will help increase their scoring potential, an area of concern for the Giants, who were ranked eighth and seventh over the first two seasons of AFLW.
"I think we're going to be quick, and I think we have the skills and decision-making behind us this time around (to capitalize on that) because that’s what we really worked on last year," she said.
"Obviously we have to build on that, but I think we'll have really quick ball movement from the backline to the forward line in two seconds, so it's going to be good.
"It's always exciting when the ball moves as fast as you can, and sometimes we don't even know what's going to happen, so it's going to be pretty exciting for the fans."
