Steve Mann takes over as coach of Bathurst Giants women for 2023 AFL Central West season

The Bathurst Giants have revealed that Steve Mann has been given the nod to coach the club's women's side in the 2023 AFL Central West competition.

He takes over from Liz Kennedy, who during her five-year stint won three premierships, made four grand finals and was named the league's coach of the year.

She was there when the Giants women first formed, but stood down following last year's dominant grand final win over Dubbo Demons.

They are big shoes to fill, but Mann is a more than capable replacement.

He's also been involved with Giants premiership success stories and has an impressive coaching resume.

Last season he assisted Brad Broes in guiding the under 17 Giants to a grand final win over the Orange Tigers.

But it's what he did prior to that which makes him an even more ideal replacement for Kennedy.

It was seven years ago that Mann first floated the idea of forming a Bathurst Giants youth girls side and when the club entered that competition in 2018, he was there as coach.

While falling by five points to Orange Tigers in that year's grand final, in 2019 Mann was back and this time he coached the Bathurst Giants youth girls to an undefeated premiership.

The players Mann coached during that stint included a number of last year's AFL Central West women's premiership winning outfit - his daughter Molly, Saige Davies, Tasmyn Davies and Zoe Peters.

The chance to work with those players again - along with more graduates from the youth girls ranks - is what lured him to his new role.

"It's the next progression, a lot of youth girls now are starting to step into the seniors, like my daughter, although she's played a few years in there," he said.

"So some of those girls who have had a couple of years in juniors are now starting to come into a senior role.

"That was the goal of getting the junior girls going, to develop them through to the senior ranks at the club and play football for a long time. We wanted them not to just play for one or two years, but develop and become good players.

"Obviously I'm excited to develop my coaching role into the senior ranks of it as well, that's something that's going to be a little bit different, but I've been around football a long time.

"There's a number of players in that team that I coached early on and I know pretty well."

While taking over a team that's aiming to defend a premiership is not an easy job, it's a prospect that Mann relishes.

Though there will be changes from the 2022 playing group, he knows he has a good group of core talent to base things around.

"I think it's exciting, I'm not too daunted by the history of this team," he said.

"We've got work to do, we'll start again, this season is another season. It has been a very successful team and I've had a little bit to do with that along the way, but it's a new season, nothing is for granted, that's for sure.

"I think our numbers will be fairly similar, we've had a few come and go, but I think our numbers will be good, we won't be struggling to put a team on the paddock.

"There are probably four or five juniors coming up, so I don't think we'll struggle, but it's football and you never know what you have until the first bounce."

READ MORE: Davies named in the GWS Giants Academy under 18 female squad for 2023

READ MORE: Bathurst Giants win AFL Central West women's grand final over Dubbo Demons

READ MORE: King has faith Bathurst can produce an AFL/AFLW player

The Giants will commence pre-season training on February 8, while Mann will get a look at his players in a match situation at an AFLX tournament in Sydney in March.

But his coaching style will be the same as it has been previously no matter the players or what they do in the pre-season. It's to focus on each game as it comes.

"The old cliché, one week at a time, one game at a time, that's how I'll go about it," he said.

"When I coached 17s with Brad last year, they were written off early, but ended up getting over the line. If you approach it one game at a time and work on one thing at a time, then big things happen."

Just as Steve Mann is a member of the Giants' senior coaching staff this season, his daughter Molly will be involved guiding juniors.

She will coach the under 12s.

"Molly starting talking football and watching it on the telly when she was two-years-old," her father said.

"She came back [to Giants] last year and she was playing with the Cardiff Hawks before that, she's been around football her whole life, I think she's ready for that, it will be lovely to sit and watch.

"She's not done actual team coaching, but she was involved with the AFL and running programs in Newcastle for a year, 18 months up there, she's travelled around working at the schools.

"She's also obviously played a lot of AFL as well, so it's the next progression. That's what our club is all about, moving forward and trying to better the sport in the town."

The Giants have locked in the rest of their coaching staff for 2023 as well.

Jayarna Kay will guide the youth girls, with Matt Wolfe doing the under 14s.

Brad Broes returns as the under 17s coach and Andrew Collins will mentor the reserve grade outfit once more.

With Mark Kennedy having stepped down from the first grade job, Shane Broes takes over with Darryl Macauley and Mick Sloan his assistants.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: