MELBOURNE president Kate Roffey has seen the club's gradual transformation in her eight years on the club's board.
Speaking to AFL head of women's footy Nicole Livingstone on her podcast, League Leaders, Roffey – a sports scientist by trade – discussed how developing the technical side of footy has helped elevate the Dees in 2021.
"I've been on the board for eight years, and we knew we had to go through the whole re-establishment of the club, and we did that, we built it from scratch," Roffey said.
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"As sports scientists, we talk about skill acquisition and there comes a time when you get your lists are what we call 'unconsciously competent', they can execute skills without having to think a lot about what they're doing.
"That's 100 games, and that's why we talk about 100 games, 150 games being so important for players. Our core group are reaching that point now.
"What you're seeing now is a reflection of that skill acquisition starting to work, a coaching system which is working because they don't have to think about skill execution all the time, so all these things go together."
Roffey also discusses the importance of club-wide belief once those skills have been obtained and the changed expectations and desire around winning.
EPISODE GUIDE
2.30 – Kate’s early career as a sports scientist at the Australian Institute of Sport.
12.57 – Career by chaos: following your gut and not being able to change direction in your career.
15.45 – Kate’s appointment as the first female President of the Melbourne Football Club.
21.30 – Melbourne's cultural reestablishment and its journey to the Grand Final.
26.15 – The establishment of Melbourne's AFLW team.
33.30 – Taking on leadership roles.
36.11 – Learning from mistakes during your career.