FIRST-YEAR Collingwood coach Sam Wright believes the Magpies have a clear path forward after tough one-win season.
Speaking after the Pies' 47-point loss to Melbourne on Saturday, Wright sees hope in the upcoming Trade Period, players' return from injury and extended opportunities to teach his game plan across the upcoming pre-season.
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Collingwood won just the one game this season, by three points against Gold Coast on the men's Grand Final eve in September. It means the Pies ended their year on the bottom of the ladder with a percentage of 44.3.
They also ended the home and away season with the second-most points conceded, with its 553 behind only the Suns' 569.
Wright said there were significant areas for his side to improve, but believes that can happen over the off-season.
The Pies had eight debutants this year, which Wright is excited by.
Taken with pick No.9 despite missing some of her draft year with a ruptured ACL, key defender Lucy Cronin was the week four Telstra AFLW Rising Star nominee and played every game in 2024.
The need for debutants stemmed from an overflowing list of injuries, particularly in the midfield. Captain Bri Davey was in and out of the side, sustaining a concussion during the condensed part of Collingwood's fixture, and ending her season early with a bone stress injury in her left tibia. Brit Bonnici also spent time on the sidelines with a calf strain.
It meant dipping into top-up players early in the season and rotating players through the midfield, including more minutes for vice-captain Ruby Schleicher.
In just week two of the season, Collingwood had to select top-up players to form a squad of 24 for its match against Hawthorn. At the time, the unavailable list included Muireann Atkinson (concussion), Lauren Butler (calf), Imogen Evans (hamstring), Kalinda Howarth (ACL), Mikayla Hyde (foot), Annie Lee (knee), Charlotte Taylor (foot) and the suspended Tarni White.
Each club has a pool of 10 train-on players drawn from state leagues who attend one training session a week to support match simulation drills, and can be elevated if a team cannot form its squad of 24. This wasn't the only occasion, with elevated Collingwood VFLW defender Jordan Ivey playing six games this year.
Wright acknowledged that while injuries were partly to blame, it also reflects on the club.
"We'll sit back and we'll assess every part of the program," he says. "When you come in … and you assess the program, not everything happens in phase one.
"We're moving into what phase two looks like, and that's addressing what the injuries look like, focusing more on high performance and medical side of things, continuing to build out our list and assessing what that looks like."
Wright is looking forward to the opportunity to develop the Pies' game system across the next pre-season to ensure everyone is on the same page, rather than on the fly mid-season with new players.
He believes the side's key issues were their ability to retain the ball in their forward half and building out their midfield contest.
"It's really hard when you start to move the ball out of your back half and that starts to click, but you can't quite retain it," he says.
"And again, we've exposed a lot of players to the midfield this year, without some of our stars in."
That lack of experience could be partly to blame for the Pies' trend where they would begin games well defensively, before breaking down as the game wore on, conceding more in the process. This was particularly the case in games against the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn, where they gave up 33 and 34 points respectively in the second half.
"The way that we started the game, the way that we moved the ball is how we want to play," Wright says of Saturday's game against Melbourne. Early in the second quarter, Bonnici's second goal cut the margin to just nine points before the Dees replied with four consecutive goals.
"Our first halves have been as good as anyone, and our ball movement has continued to improve," Wright said.
The Trade Period in December provides an opportunity for the Pies to "aggressively assess" their list.
Wright says his focus is on retaining "talent that we want to retain" and he believes that the Pies can do so, and have the potential to be a destination club despite their season because of their culture and proud history.
"The thing about our group is that they keep turning up, they genuinely just want to play football next week," Wright says.
"We're really happy with our culture, we feel like that's absolutely progressed. We've got a framework we live by and that's being an AFLW Collingwood person. We know that the football side of things will improve."
