SWIFTS football netball club has announced its senior coaching panel for 2020.
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Kristy Dodds and Brooke Palfreyman have taken on the role as A Grade co-coaches.
Dodds returned to the netball court at Swifts in 2019 after a year off, giving birth to her first child Ayla in October 2018.
Palfreyman played at the Swifts in 2012, travelling to Stawell while at university with her partner and Swifts 2020 senior football coach Brett Hargreaves.
After both coaches were approached individually for the role, the close friends discussed the possibility of taking on the role together.
"I knew Brooke was keen to come back to the club this year after having a year off last year," Dodds said.
"I was keen to stay at the club. We were both trying to convince one another to take it on and what the season might look like.
"After confirming the outgoing coach didn't want the role again and with existing players in the team, we decided together, we could contribute a lot to the development of netball for the club."
Dodds said a large portion of her consideration to take on the role was Mel Beal returning to Swifts to take on the B Grade coaching role.
"Mel and I moved over the Moyston together in 2016 and 2017," Dodds said.
"I came back to the Swifts and Mel has decided to come back this year which I'm really excited about."
Dodds and Palfreyman played together in 2012, Palfreyman playing for Lindenow since then whilst living and working in East Gippsland.
"We're getting in contact with all the players at the club and currently meeting with some players in the region," Palfreyman said.
"Hopefully we can keep a lot of the same players and we're hoping to develop our junior stock as well and put a real emphasis on that this season."
Palfreyman said pre-season for the netballers would start on Tuesday.
"We're hoping to join in with the footballers for a warm-up and cool down as we are one club," she said.
"We will then go and focus on our netball requirements. I think it's really important as a club to come together as one and support each other.
"The footballers have started pre-season and we've had some netballers come along which we're really pleased to see."
Dodds said she felt unfinished business from the past seasons for the A Grade team.
"It's been a while since I got to play finals before this year and 2019 was the first time I'd played finals for the Swifts," she said.
"It was really exciting and the vibe around the club was amazing - not just for our team but for all teams which made the finals.
"That's what we want to achieve. We want all teams across all grades to be playing in finals and we're really looking forward to taking on the role of leaders on the netball courts for the club."
The club also announced Stephen Ashley and Michaela Armer would return to coach C Grade and C Reserve respectively.
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