Peta Searle is the only female senior coach in the AFLW this year. That's one up on last year, and two down from the years before.

Peta is the coach of St Kilda's new AFLW team, and she only got a leg up into coaching footy in a man's world because a champion saw it right to kick her the ball of opportunity.

His name is Gary Ayres, a five-time premiership player with the Hawthorn Football Club, AFL Hall of Famer, coach of both Geelong and Adelaide Crows, and for a while now, the head guy at the Port Melbourne Footy Club in the VFL.

Peta and Gary met on a coaching certification course, where Peta confided to Gary that despite her multiple premierships in women's footy and her unisex coaching accreditations, deep down she knew she'd never get to coach in the AFL because she was female.

According to Gary Ayres, giving Peta an opportunity at Port Melbourne was a "no brainer". ( ABC News: Patrick Rocca )

'He was able to take gender out of my ability'

According to Gary, giving Peta an opportunity at Port Melbourne was a "no brainer".

"A coach gave me an opportunity a long time ago and for that I was forever thankful, and in this case, Pete was actually a lot smarter and a lot better than some of the other coaches I'd had," he recalled, when the two reunited to chat on my ABC Radio Melbourne Sunday show.

And then Peta Searle speaks the words that need to be said.

"He gave credibility to the fact that I'd actually coached five premierships in a row with the Darebin women's team," she said.

"He was able to take gender out of my ability and created an environment within his club that enabled someone like myself to come in and grow."

Peta doesn't sugar-coat her experience post Port Melbourne, recalling knocking on doors within the AFL only to be met with "a lot of pleasant lip service".

But after a strategic and risky media campaign spearheaded by sports journalist Samantha Lane, she was eventually offered a development coach opportunity at the St Kilda FC.

Coaching men in AFL gave her "legitimacy".

Peta confided to Gary that despite her credentials, she knew she'd never get to coach in the AFL because she was female. ( ABC News: Patrick Rocca )

'For the time being, the best coaches are men'

Many of her sisters in footy haven't been so lucky.

While they have fought for today's girls to play the game they love at the highest level, cruelly they themselves are denied entry to the promised land of the coaches' box by the same women they liberated.

Coaching in the AFL gave Peta Searle "legitimacy", but many of her sisters in footy haven't been so lucky. ( ABC News: Patrick Rocca )

Mark Brayshaw, the CEO of the AFL Coaches Association, speaks plainly on this.

"You only get one chance as a player and the women's players want the best coaches. For the time being, the best coaches are men," he says.

AFLW Head Nicole Livingston stops short of agreeing, but offers:

"There are a few amazing women who are coaching in the system like Mish Cowan and Bec Goddard and Peta, but …we need the next generation coming through like Erin Phillips and Chelsea Randall and Alisha Eva to see change," she says.

"Nobody can question their football pedigree because they've played at the highest level."

Peta's the coach of St Kilda's new AFLW team. ( ABC News: Patrick Rocca )

'That's all they've experienced'

"Stop there," remarks Bec Goddard, when I share that with her.

"This is why you get the players saying the men are the best coaches, 'cos that's all they've experienced.

"If you've only eaten roast chicken all your life that's all you know, and that's all you think is possible."

Bec points to the need for strong leadership to buck the trend.

"It takes a brave football club to hire a woman as a coach," she says.

"It's hard is to tell a man that a woman is better or might offer a winning edge to his 250 games of AFL."

'Declaring your ambition was detrimental to your career'

When the AFLW launched in 2016, we all thought it was a breakthrough not just for opportunities on the field, but in changing perceptions on the other side of the fence for women as well.

But whilst the courtship and romance between women and the AFL was exhilarating, once committed, life for women inside the clubs was not always rosy.

Both Michelle Cowan at Fremantle and Bec Goddard at Adelaide served as senior coaches in the AFLW in the league's first two years — Bec landing the inaugural premiership with her team.

Bec Goddard served as a senior coach in the AFLW in the league's first two years, landing the inaugural premiership with Adelaide. ( AAP: Dan Peled )

Both declined to renew their contracts at their clubs: Bec through a lack of development opportunities that would justify leaving her full-time career, and Mish through overall lack of support and resources.

Whilst the men could easily use the women's league to gain much needed coaching experience for professional advancement, it was not so for the women

"Prior to coming into the AFLW, we thought it best to declare 'This is what we want to do, this is what to be'…but as time wore on, we realised that declaring your ambition was detrimental to your career," Bec resolves.

Michelle Cowan is now incredibly happy as the AFLW Forwards coach at the West Coast Eagles.

Reflecting on her time at Freo she remarks wryly, "Coaches don't generally leave a senior coaching position. I was offered another two-year contract but declined.

"They framed it as me leaving for 'family reasons'. No. It wasn't."

Michelle Cowan (centre) declined to renew her contract with Freemantle due to an overall lack of support and resources. ( ABC News: Blake Kagi )

Thinking outside the box

Since then, both Fremantle and Adelaide have had mass management over hauls.

Mark Brayshaw nearly chokes when I ask him if he's a football feminist.

"My friends would laugh at that. But what they would say is I treat people fairly," he says.

"I have four sons. I'm married but I've got no idea about girls, generally speaking. I'm a boofhead. I'm just doing my best."

After a professional development trip to Harvard last year, he realised that while minorities in gender and race may have access to education, it's nigh impossible to obtain much needed experience without the sponsorship of someone already on the inside with access to power.

"Sponsorship is a much more muscular version of mentorship, as I see it," he explains passionately.

"It's where the sponsor actively uses his or her network for the advancement and the benefit of the sponsee, and in so doing puts their reputation on the line."

Mark's commitment has extended to brokering "sponsorships" between, amongst others, Essendon's John Worsfold and Alisha Eva from the Giants, Sarah Perkins from the Crows and Scott Burns of Hawthorn, and St Kilda's Brett Ratten with Carlton's Lauren Arnell.

"Talking to the male coaches on the proposition of sponsorship, I get halfway through the question and immediately they say, 'Yeah. I'd love to," Mark remarks. "I'm optimistic".

'It is quite delicate'

This year, the AFL has kicked off a novel women's "sponsorship based" coaching initiative.

Six clubs were chosen to participate in the AFLW Coaching Academy program from a broader field. Each nominated a woman to participate a year-long program, similar to where Peta Searle met Gary Ayres.

The AFL covers the cost of the learnings, while the clubs guarantee a practical experience plan for the women coaches. This includes access to the men's program.

The plan seems incubated in those early frustrating experiences of Michelle Cowan and Bec Goddard.

In her role steering the women's competition, Nicole Livingston is also determined to see change. ( ABC News: Shahni Wellington )

There were no national programs targeted toward developing the elite level of female coaches two years ago.

"It is quite delicate," admits Nicole Livingston.

"If we just drop a woman in there and it's not well thought out or well supported across both men's and women's programs, you're not setting them up to succeed."

'It's getting them to see that women's football is valuable'

This year too the AFL has combined the "soft cap" budget for clubs with both men's and women's teams.

That's footy language for saying that instead of a club having two separate budgets for the men and women in (non-player) football related expenses, the club gets a consolidated and whopping $10.3 million, with at least $450,000 of that to be spent on the women.

The clubs can allocate more money to women, but not less.

So if the club truly wants to invest in their female football staff upskilling in the men's competition, they can share that wage across the joint soft cap.

In reverse, a men's high-performance coach can work across the women's programme to add value and mentorship.

"It's still getting clubs to see that women's football is valuable, and that winning a premiership for the women's program means as much as it does for the men's program," Livingstone explains.

"But I'm under no illusions we've got a long way to go. It's still not there yet."

Social capital just as important as dollars and cents

The history and the heritage of men's football is of chasing the "Holy Grail" of the premiership.

The basic truth follows that clubs have not liked anything that perceivably distracts them from that goal. That includes women's football.

Other obstacles include a lack of revenue and attendance, but in many ways, the social capital the AFLW creates is just as important as dollars and cents.

Loading...

The recently announced BHP naming rights sponsorship of both the AFLW Coaches and Umpires Academy has an innovative form, with vocational training opportunities for female players offered in the male-dominated mining industry.

In a unique "knowledge exchange", both Nicole Livingston and the AFL's Tanya Hosch have participated in workshops and training sessions assisting the mining giant's transformation into a more diverse, inclusive workplace.

All it took was one conversation

Men have an important role to play in helping women achieve their dreams, footy and otherwise — and sometimes, all it takes is a conversation.

The week before the inaugural AFLW Grand Final, Bec Goddard received an unexpected phone call from a silent number on the way home from training. It was Hawthorn head coach Alastair Clarkson.

"He said, 'It's Clarko here'," she remembers, "and I nearly drove off the road".

"Then he said, 'I thought I'd ring for a chat about about those quick girls running out of the back line for Brisbane. I've had a little bit of experience with Grand Finals'," Bec recalls, chuckling still.

"I managed to say, 'Yes I know you have', and then Clarko outlined a new defensive strategy he was planning to use in the men's opening round."

The rest is history. Bec changed her defence and the Crows won by six points.

She moves to Melbourne this week to become the Head Coach of the Hawthorn VFLW program.

The words of Gary Ayres when he met Peta Searle have echoed across the AFL community.

"If someone's got something that's pretty viable, my own personal opinion is they should be given an opportunity".

It's catching on.

Libbi Gorr presents ABC Radio Melbourne's Saturday breakfast show. Twitter: @Libbi_Gorr