“People talk about boys’ football and girls’ football, but to me, it’s just football. It’s the same game. Good players want to win and good players want to compete whoever they are.”
Stephen Walmsley knows his brief. As head coach of the Hyundai Football West Academy U18s Girls team, his role is to help produce footballers good enough to eventually have a chance of making the Matildas.
This means refining the technical skills, tactical understanding and high-performance behaviours of his players, as spelt out when the Academy was announced last year.
Equally important are the unglamorous demands of top-level football which the prospectus often leaves unsaid.
“This is my first time in female football in this kind of role, but you soon realise the good players want to get better. The only difference is perhaps how you communicate, but how you coach is the same as with boys,” said Walmsley, who is an A Diploma coach.
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“When I came into the program, I spoke with (Head of Football West Academy) Gareth Naven and (Girls Program Lead) Andrew Ord and it was decided the team needed a bit of a collective mentality shift.
“To be in the Academy, the girls must have a level of talent. That’s a given. And the priority is always to improve the players’ technical ability and their game awareness.
“What we also wanted to know was, can you meet the physical demands of the game? Can you run? Can you do repeated action, head it, kick it? Because the further they go in the game, that is what they will be exposed to and it can’t come as a shock to them.
“That’s the starting point, be competitive and be hard to play against. You can’t be on every single game, and you will lose games. But when you’re not on, it’s how you react. There are times when you will be under pressure. But you can’t lose 6-0, 7-0.
“They have all bought in and are enjoying it.”
The win-loss column reads well for Walmsley and his side who have made a strong start to the 2025 NPLWA – Women’s campaign. But the former Perth Glory National Youth League and US NCAA scholarship player knows none of that matters long-term. “It can’t just be about results. We will be judged on whether we can produce players,” he said.
Liverpudlian Walmsley is one of a team of credentialed coaches working in the Football West Academy, which was officially launched earlier this month. “I see this as a great opportunity to coach quality players and work with committed, high-level people such as Gareth and Andy,” he said.
“This is a high-performance environment and one where I believe I will thrive.”
Program Lead Ord knows Walmsley from his time as a player and is delighted to have him in the new set-up.
“When the NPLW coaching position became available, Stevie was a crucial addition to help us fast-track where we want to take the Girls program,” he said.
“As a player, he came through the previous Football West NTC Boys program and his year group had Adam Taggart, Ryan Williams, Ryan Edwards and Storm Roux go on to be capped at full International level. He knows what a high-performance program should look like for elite teenagers as he was one himself.
“Additionally, it is very important to get coaches who buy into the mantra we set out, which was to technically improve the players first before tactically improving the team. He was brave enough to embrace our approach to reduce the average age of the squad and create more high-level opportunities for players who will be attending the Emerging Matildas Championships.
“We looked at the demands from the 2023 Women’s World Cup and came up with a player profile. Stevie has wholeheartedly supported this and everyone has put an incredible amount of work in pre-season, so it’s pleasing that players and staff are seeing some early benefits to this new approach.”
HYUNDAI FOOTBALL WEST ACADEMY
GIRLS PROGRAM LEAD
ANDREW ORD
U13 GIRLS
Head coach: DIEGO MARIN
U14 GIRLS
Head coach: CARLOS VEGA MENA
Assistant: RYDEEN BOTHA
U15 GIRLS
Head coach: COURTNEY OWEN
Assistant: SARAH CARROLL
U18 GIRLS
Head coach: STEPHEN WALMSLEY
Assistant: DAMON MALLOWS
- Hyundai Australia is the name sponsor of the Girls program of the Football West Academy