THE Bathurst Lady Bushrangers might be doing it tough this season compared to the days when they were the undisputed heavyweights of the AFL Central West women's league, but there is still reason for optimism.
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It's because co-coaches Kelsey Richards and Tori Whitla can see the commitment to improve the new and younger members of their squad are making.
"Every single game we watch our girls get better and better and watch them close gaps which were much bigger at the start of the year," Whitla said.
"You see so many young girls step up and we have got ones who are completely new to the code and it's really good to see them develop as well.
"They are using their skills from other sports, we didn't expect them to use those skills like they have, but it's worked, it's been really good."
On Saturday the improvement Whitla spoke of was evident as they kicked four majors against the Bathurst Giants - they'd only managed four in total in their two previous encounters.
The goal this season is to build on that and hopefully find more wins to add to their round one success over the Tigers, but in terms of the future, Whitla hopes to retain a bulk of the squad.
If they do, she feels success will come.
"Kels and I are very big advocates of as long as you give 100 percent then we're happy no matter the outcome. Obviously a couple of wins on the board would be ideal, but as long as we see them giving as much effort as they can possibly put out," she said.
"They're really good at taking on board what we say and when we get to training it's always a case of what we can improve on. We have to take the good with the bad I guess, but it's definitely great to see them improving.
"We want to set a really strong foundation to keep our girls around because I think that's what we struggled with in our team the last couple of years, I think one season we lost 10 players at once with people graduating from uni, going overseas or injury.
"It's hard to build back from that, but we are definitely getting there."
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