Bowness excited for first season as Swan Districts coach

New Swan Districts WAFLW coach Ben Bowness is not only excited to be about to lead the black-and-whites into the 2024 season, but couldn't be happier with how the pre-season preparation has gone.

Bowness has now completed his first pre-season in charge of the Swan Districts WAFLW team leading into the 2024 season that gets underway on Saturday March 2 against Claremont at Revo Fitness Stadium.

Bowness takes on the role as Senior Coach after working as an assistant under Adam Dancey last season and brings with him a wealth of football experience both as a player and a coach.

He was a 200-plus game player and triple premiership winner in the Perth Football League at the Kalamunda Cougars where he has gone on to be a coach along with stepping into the role with Swan Districts for the WAFLW team last year.

Bowness now feels ready to begin life as a Senior Coach in the WAFLW competition at Swan Districts and couldn’t be happier with how it's going so far with the 2024 season quickly approaching.

"It wasn’t initially something I had thought about, I just got into coaching to try and give back to the sport," Bowness said.

"But once I became an assistant coach last year and realised that I quite enjoyed it, I definitely started thinking that one day I could potentially be a head coach. The new opportunity arose and I was lucky enough to win the position and now the sky is the limit really, and I'm really enjoying it.

"I'm settling in pretty well. It was a bit nerve-racking at first taking on the top job, but I'm really enjoying it now and the girls have been amazing. Pre-season has been great and now we can't wait to get ready for the season starting which is creeping up quickly."

Understandably Bowness was a bit nervous before the first pre-season match against a real opponent with Swan Districts. It would be only natural for those nerves to ramp up for Round 1, but overall he's feeling good about how the team is coming together for the 2024 season.

"I was a bit nervous before our first scratch match just because it was the first one against a real opponent, but now I'm just excited and can't wait for Round 1," he said.

Now I'm just excited about the season and whatever happens, happens, but we'll definitely give it a crack.

"We're ready for Claremont in that first game. I think a lot of teams will improve this year but Claremont have always been good and we expect them to be tough first up like they always are."

After being appointed to the role back in early October, Bowness got straight to work on putting together this playing squad, the coaching staff and putting all the plans in place for the work he wanted the team to do in the pre-season, and then ultimately how he wants them to play.

There's been plenty of work put in over the last couple of months obviously on the fitness and football side of things, but also in building the culture within the playing group and getting that chemistry right.

"Everything's gone really well. We did a pre-season camp which was a bit different. We had no footies involved and did a bit of team bonding, and that went really well," Bowness said.

"It was all about building the relationships between me and the girls as well as between the league and Rogers Cup players as well.

"I know everyone says this, but I feel like we've had a really good pre-season and are happy with our preparation for the season. The girls push each other so it's been quite pleasurable in that sense."