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SHE’S captained the Bendigo Spirit and Bendigo Lady Braves basketball teams – now Andrea Walsh is making her name as a leader on the football field.
Walsh, who only started playing Australian rules last year, eight years after her stellar basketball career ended, has been appointed captain of Bendigo Thunder’s Northern Football League Women’s side for 2018.
She replaces Leah French, who will line-up for Collingwood’s VFLW team this season.
Walsh made an immediate impact in her debut season with the Thunder in 2017.
She booted 50 goals during the home and away season to top the NFLW goal kicking.
Likely her most crucial goal came with three and a half minutes to play in the 2017 grand final against Diamond Creek, putting the seal on a hard-fought 10-point premiership win for the Thunder in the competition’s inaugural season.
Walsh conceded she had big shoes to fill following the departure of French, a former Thunder best and fairest and the club’s most recent premiership captain.
“Leah French was absolutely outstanding; Jac Louttit as vice-captain was just as good,” the new skipper said at Monday afternoon’s announcement.
The Thunder will start the NFLW season with a new captain and coach, following the pre-Christmas signing of Luis Alvarez-Harris, who has replaced 2017 premiership coach Cherie O’Neill.
Walsh said Alvarez-Harris had been a positive influence on a new-look Thunder squad, which was constantly looking to build and improve.
She admitted to a few goose bumps on learning of her newest appointment as a captain.
“To be standing here eight years later (after basketball) …. I was only coming to the Thunder to run a round and keep fit and now all of a sudden I am leading this great group of girls. I’m really proud to be involved,” Walsh said.
“We’ve got a really good culture at the club, now it’s just about making sure the players buy into it and also the coaches, and making sure we are all on the same page.”
Walsh played nearly 400 SEABL games for the Lady Braves and remains the club’s all-time highest points scorer and was the inaugural captain of the Spirit’s WNBL team.
The Thunder has a bye in round one, but will kick-start their premiership defence in round two against Diamond Creek at Plenty Park Oval on April 15.
The reigning premiers will play their first home game at Weeroona Oval on April 22 against Pascoe Vale.
Meanwhile, one of the stars of the Thunder’s 2017 Northern Country Women’s League flag Molly Metcalf will captain the club’s development team, which will be coached by Terry Burt.
Both appointments were confirmed on Monday.
The Thunder’s second team will this season compete in the AFL Central Victoria Senior Women’s Football League.
Burt, who was a former Bendigo region youth coach of the year while leading the Newbridge under-17s in the early 2010s, said he was excited by the challenge ahead.
“To come into something I haven’t done before and coach women’s sport is going to be a massive learning curve,” he said.
“Bu the women we have at the club and the people behind us are fantastic.
“The girls are super-excited and we are looking forward to that round one.”
The new CVSWFL will feature at least five teams, including Kangaroo Flat, Kyneton, North Bendigo and Strathfieldsaye, with most of the Thunder’s former NCWFL rivals now competing in the AFL Goulburn Murray competition.