Reed excited to be back at Swans as Rogers Cup coach

Tayah Reed was part of the inaugural Rogers Cup team at Swan Districts and now returns to be coach and she couldn’t be more excited for what her young, small and hard hitting group can produce in 2024.

Reed has been appointed the new coach of the Rogers Cup team at Swan Districts for the 2024 season marking her return to the club where she herself was a Rogers Cup player to begin with before transitioning into league ranks.

She initially went on to play at Swan Athletic before beginning her coaching journey at High Wycombe, and now couldn’t be more excited to take the leap into coaching at Rogers Cup level and especially to be doing it at Swan Districts.

Round 1 is now quickly approaching with Swan Districts taking on Claremont on Saturday afternoon at Revo Fitness Stadium.

She might be feeling a tad nervous, but is excited too to get the season underway and to unleash her group that might be largely young and small yet who are also quick and hit hard according to their new coach.

"I'll be nervous for this first game, there's no doubt about that, but I'm feeling excited too," Reed said.

"I just feel like these girls have a lot of potential to go pretty far so we'll just have to play it by here now that we're about to start and see how we go.

"I've got a great group of girls and their listening can do with some tweaking at times, but other than that I couldn’t probably ask for a better group."

There's a whole heap of new faces coming into the Rogers Cup program at Swan Districts in 2024, and it's a largely new coaching group helping out Reed as well.

While Rebecca Coleman has returned from the coaching staff last season, Lewis Tester and Chris McCarthy are among the new faces that Reed is already having a ball working alongside.

"I've got Lewis Tester as part of my coaching staff who is a senior men's player down at Swans as well along with Chris McCarthy who is a coach from Ellenbrook, and Rebecca Coleman," she said.

"She was an assistant coach last year as well and they are a great group of people to work with, and even last week when I was bed ridden for a few days, I had no issues trusting them to take training. They are the most supportive coaches I could ask for."

When Reed initially left Swan Districts as a player, she didn’t know if it would be on the cards for her to return one day, but she couldn’t be happier to be doing so as a coach now only a few years later.

"It's definitely a bit of a full circle moment because I was in the first ever Rogers Cup team at Swan Districts," Reed said.

"It was definitely unexpected as well if I'm honest, I have only been coaching for a few years at High Wycombe and then this opportunity arose, somewhat reached out and I thought I might as well throw my hat in the ring.

"It all worked out very well in the end and I'm very excited, and I know that I have some big shoes to fill with Shanae (Davidson) leaving but I can't wait."

Coaching wasn’t even something that Reed necessarily thought she was interested in getting involved with. That was until she was asked to help out at High Wycombe, given five players only and was given the task to put together a team.

That was being thrown in the ultimate deep end, but she quickly realised it was something she enjoyed.

"To be completely honest it wasn’t something that I was that interested in to start with. I kind of got roped down to High Wycombe because they needed a coach for their Year 5/6 team and I got asked to go down there," Reed said.

"I just thought I had nothing to lose so gave it a crack and they pretty much gave me five girls and said off you go. I had to build the team up from those five girls so I dragged my niece Ruby down and we weren’t even sure if she would enjoy it but she ended up loving it.

"Then we ended up getting a lot of her school friends down and built a team, and managed to go undefeated in the 'non-scoring league'."

Reed has gone on to coach a couple of different age groups at High Wycombe as well and the more coaching she's done, the more she realised it's something she wanted to continue to pursue.

"That first year of coaching I absolutely loved it and then I had a bit of a jump from the 5/6 team to the Years 11/12 so that was a big age jump," she said.

"It was kind of like having a whole bunch of friends all of a sudden that you're just able to yell at sometimes because you're their coach.

"So that was good and then I went from that team to the Years 7/8 team last year and the more coaching I do the more I love it. Even just being down at Swans so far getting ready for this season and I absolutely love it already.

"I'm working with a really great team and they've just welcomed me with open arms and the girls have definitely made me want to do this in the future too. So along the way I want to keep growing my knowledge and skill, and have some fun doing this."

Swan Districts is a club that always will have a special place in the heart of Reed, but she wasn’t sure if it would be ever somewhere she came back to after initially deciding to step away.

However, once the chance presented to put her hand up to be the Rogers Cup coach and was then appointed, she hasn’t taken any time to remember everything she loves about Swan Districts and especially connecting with some familiar faces.

"I was there for eight years as a player and then had a few years away firstly going to Swan Athletic to play mainly just to grow my love for the game again," Reed said.

"Obviously with AFLW coming into play it made everything very serious and what not down there and was pushing my body to limits it couldn’t really go to at the time. But I got my love of the game back and I honestly did not expect to be back.

"So coming back now as a coach and seeing some of the old faces that I used always see gave me a bit of an upper hand. It's good to see everyone again and then some old faces coming back like Brianna Hyde and Emily McGuire so that's good because they are some of my really close mates.

"Being back down there with them helps to make it fun but there's obviously lots and lots of new faces."