GFLW flag a perfect farewell for Diorites mentor after two seasons

Goldfields Football League’s reigning women’s premiers Mines Rovers will have a new coach next year as Quinny Matla steps down after two seasons at the helm.

Notwithstanding the prospect of back-to-back flags next year, Matla said he walks away from the role confident that more success was just around the corner for the squad.

Matla this year led the Diorites to a maiden GFLW flag, with an eight-point triumph over Railways in the grand final, 3.0 (18) to 1.4 (10).

It was the culmination of a dominant season for Mines Rovers, whose 16 games in the qualifying series yielded 14 wins.

In his first season in 2023, Matla took the group to 11 wins — underpinned by the first seven in a row to open the season.

But they faltered during the second half of the season as injuries and fatigue set in, and the last nine qualifying games produced five defeats.

Up to nine players from the 2023 squad didn’t return this year, and the season-opener against Boulder was marred by an eight-point defeat.

It was followed by a round-five draw with Railways, but the blue-and-whites hit their straps to win the next 14 games before also winning the second semifinal by 17 points.

Matla said victory in the grand final was an ideal way to bow out after what he described as two seasons of trial-and-error.

“I’d always coached young (colts) players, who already had that strong footballing background,” Matla said of being the successor to Pat Casey, who was women’s coach for their first two seasons in the GFLW.

“Being so used to that meant I never really knew what to (initially) expect from the girls — they weren’t necessarily from that similar background and a big part of the challenge was to get them to trust me and for me to trust them.

“But having such a great leadership group, especially someone like Jess (Bolton), who I got quite close to quite quickly, really helped (because) in the first year, it was pretty much just me.

“I didn’t have an assistant-coach and I relied on Jess and then Torrie (Revell), as far as picking her brains and trading ideas alongside her experience.

“And you have to change the structures a bit, too — not in a sexist way, but in how you speak and how you approach different aspects of the game.”

Another major challenge, Matla said, was identifying how to best help players from a long line of different sporting backgrounds but virtually none involving the oval ball, translate those skills to Australian Rules.

“If you get innovative, you can break down and isolate the skills they already have from those other sports and explain how they can be translated to football,” Matla said.

“That’s a challenge in itself and I pushed them pretty hard.

“But it was a great learning curve — especially when we came back to tackle that second season.

“Losing nine (from 2023) was at times frightening, but we picked up six good players and got the job done as we hoped we could.

“I’ve no regrets whatsoever — coaching the women’s squad has actually been the most satisfying thing I’ve ever had in sport and that includes my own playing experiences.

“Having those two years with the group, having an action plan, working that plan and finally getting each player to exactly where they wanted to be was like nothing I’d experienced in sport before.”

For the moment, Matla said, he would forego coaching responsibilities to concentrate on family and business.