Daisy Pearce, Lisa Webb & Jenna Allomes: The WA trailblazers inspiring the next generation of female coaches

During her playing days with South Fremantle, Jenna Allomes never thought there would be a path that could lead her into the coach’s box. Years later, she is the only female senior coach at any level in the WAFL, leading East Perth’s new women’s team for the first time this season. Allomes is a trailblazer in West Australian football and is now being celebrated as part of the West Australia Football Commisson’s Women in Coaching Month. This year’s theme Accessibility for All aims to highlight the female coaching pathway and provide opportunities for female players to transition into coaching. “It’s been a long journey, I’ve been in football for a while now but then you look back and see how much has happened in a short time and how quickly it’s evolved,” Allomes said. “It’s nice that there’s a pathway for others now because I didn’t see that when I started playing football.” The East Perth coach believes imposter syndrome is to blame for the perceived barrier for females taking up coaching roles. “A lot of it is as females thinking that we are not good enough, imposter syndrome is a massive thing and just thinking ‘I don’t have the knowledge’ or ‘I don’t have the experience’ or ‘I’ve never played football before’ — I think that’s probably the biggest barrier,” she said. “It’s our own imposter syndrome that gets us a lot of the time.” Even at AFLW level, female coaches are still a rarity. The league has five of them and two of them — Fremantle’s Lisa Webb and West Coast’s Daisy Pearce — are coaching in WA. Allomes said she counts both of them as inspirations. “It’s so refreshing to have Daisy and Lisa in those positions and to know that is an opportunity now, and that people trust and support that they are the right people for the jobs,” she said. “I don’t think we have ever had that before and it’s just been great to have them there and know that’s somewhere you can get to if you want to.” Already the head coach of the state under-16’s program and an assistant coach for the 18’s, Allomes is forging her own coaching career and is keen for other females to start their own journey “I think it just comes back to being a role model and showing girls that there is an opportunity for females to be in these positions,” she said. “The playing side of it has come so far and now following it is all the other aspects that females can go into whether its coaching, admin, umpiring whatever it is there’s been such a big push for it. “The male coaches in our league are fantastic, they are very supportive of females and female coaches but it would be really nice to have more female coaches so we could share different things about how we go about things, I would love to have more females involved. “I think its really important that we do get females involved and that we support them, sometimes they are the best people for the job.”