“They are very fit and ready to go,” assistant coach Mario de Santa-ana said.
De Santa-ana said the coaching staff has been following the advice from the high performance experts in order to deal with the shorter turnarounds between seasons.
In previous years, the NAB League Girls started in late February, but in 2022, that has been brought forward to this weekend, January 22, which has meant the Bushrangers – like all NAB League Girls sides – have had to complete a juggling act between fitness and skills over the summer.
“We’ve sort of adjusted, we’ve increased our conditioning program and dropped off in a little bit of the skills and reversed that in January.”
Many of the Bushrangers performed strongly at the AFLW testing day in December, which pleased de Santa-ana that their hard work on the track was paying off.
“We’ve been pretty happy with our profile of girls we’ve got,” he said. “They’re athletic and they’re fit, so we’re pretty happy with the results.”
The AFLW NAB season for the Murray Bushrangers starts Saturday, January 22 at Yarrawonga’s JC Lowe Oval with the Futures Game at 11am followed by the Under 19 NAB League game at 1pm.
