With less than one month to go until the 2025 NAB AFLW season kicks off, Sydney Swans co-captain Lucy McEvoy spoke to the media on Thursday. She spoke about the team's pre-season, how Chloe Molloy was tracking and which new players were impressing her so far.
On the excitement for Round One
"With such a long off-season, we're almost there so yeah, big, long build-up, but as I said really keen to get into it and hopefully put our best foot forward."
On looking forward to putting coach Scott Gowan's words into practice
"Scott has so many great ideas and sort of little things that he implements in the game plan, so it'll be nice to put it into practise finally and we get that chance, as I said, in the practise games to put it to work and see what works, what doesn't, and then tidy things up before we head into Round One. But yeah, Scott's a mastermind, so probably a few things that'll be of surprise this year, but we're really looking forward to it."
On getting players back from injury this season
"Chloe's a superstar at the competition for a reason, so it's really nice to have her back up and running at the moment and she's been flying throughout pre-season, her rehab's been going really well. I don't think there's a return date just as of yet but she's, yeah, tracking really well and we're really looking forward to having her back, as well as Morph (Ally Morphett), Laura had a few issues last year with injury, Mon Ham, the list is looking really healthy at the moment, touch wood it can stay that way over the next few weeks heading into Round One because those players are so crucial for us and the success we're aiming to have this year and we're really looking forward to having those girls back."
On the absence of Chloe Molloy last season
"I mean, the biggest impact you can have as a leader is on field and being in the moment and standing up when the team needs you the most and she's looking forward to doing that more than anybody and I'm so glad that she's back out there with me. At times last year I was probably a little bit lost without her naturally so to have her sort of patrolling the forward line, mid-forward line, it'll be, yeah, really comforting knowing that she's back out there and I can bounce off her a little bit more. In saying that, a lot of the girls have been brilliant in stepping up into sort of more leadership roles this year and pulling their way out on the field, which is really exciting."
On the team's goals for this season
"I mean the goal every year, I know it's cliche to say it, take it week by week, but I think we're kidding ourselves if we're not thinking that finals is definitely on the cards. We had nine changes in the off-season, which is a lot, particularly in AFW with a list of 30, having nearly a third of that turnover is a massive change, but we've put in a lot of work since probably about early February and had a few trial games earlier in the year and we thought we did okay in those and the purpose of that was to get time playing together and experience playing together, particularly with those new girls and the way that they've slotted in and made this side a totally different looking team. We're really excited by the prospect of that and coming into this year, our expectations are definitely high, but of course, we'll have to tick off the early wins first."
On the new recruits
"There's a few, I think Darcy Moloney is one that comes to mind straight away, she's a Geelong girl down from where I grew up and I played junior footy a little bit with her and she's a jet. She's a bit of a hothead at times, like me, but I love her and she's going to add a lot to our midfield and forward group, she's incredibly skilful. In saying that, all nine of our new recruits are incredibly talented. We've got some older heads come in, I probably shouldn't call them older, they won't like that, but more experienced in Lulu Puller from North Melbourne, Sarah Steele Park who's come in, Caitlin Reid, who's another, I think she's about 28. To get those girls with experience come in and help us from a maturity level wise, it's been really impressive to have those girls around the club and the young girls have really embraced them."
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