AFL Central West: Bathurst Lady Bushrangers are staying positive and improving

After being restricted to just a single behind in the opening quarter at George Park 2, the Lady Bushrangers matched the Tigers in the terms that followed to see the final score stand at 4-6-30 to 2-4-16.

It was seeing her still developing side lift and compete that gave Lady Bushrangers co-coach Kelsey Richards plenty to feel positive about.

"They got the jump on us in the first quarter, but from the second quarter onwards we held pretty firm with them," she said.

"We were pretty happy with our performance, we just couldn't make up that ground on them.

"We were hopeful after we had a strong performance against Orange in round one, so I guess a part of us is disappointed that we didn't win, but the way that we fought the whole contest and kept them to two goals after quarter-time, we can take a lot of positives from the game.

"In our players' player vote, we literally had half our team, 10 players get votes, so that's indicative of the effort right across the ground, we get lots of pride in seeing that sort of vote."

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The Tigers kicked two goals one in the opening term to take the early advantage, but in the second quarter the visitors only managed to extend their lead by a single point.

It remained tight after the long break as the Lady Bushrangers playing group highlighted what they have been working on so far this season.

Given the relative lack of experience in the squad, the goal each week is to continue their skill development, work on better positional play and remain positive. Richards is confident that will lead to more wins.

"We've been really open about things with the playing group, we have expectations on the girls every week. It's not necessarily about what the final score is going to be, but about the way we play our footy and our attitude," she said.

"We've always held our heads high, we've had some pretty strong defeats, but we've improved and each week. We feel like we are getting closer and closer to that next win.

"We've been trialling girls in different positions to see where they are comfortable and can make the biggest impact in the game. So each week it is a little bit of an experiment to see okay what have we improved on and what is the next step to getting us to perform better across the four quarters?

"I can't credit the girls anymore with the positive attitude they have, it's what is allowing us to improve every week."

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