The side representing the Future Ferns Domestic Programme (FFDP) this season will feature some fresh faces when the action kicks off on Sunday. The FFDP team will again compete in the AFF/NFF 17^th grade boys conference and many players will be looking to impress after receiving call-ups into the programme.

A total of 28 players have been named in the FFDP for 2018 and nearly half of these are newcomers, namely Hannah Blake, Georgia Brown, Macey Fraser, Sarah Gregorius, Hannah Mackay-Wright, Aneka Mittendorff, Rose Morton, Tayla O’Brien, Gabrielle Rennie, Michaela Robertson, Emma Rolston and Stephanie Skilton.

“There’s been quite a lot of change from last year but players leaving just provides opportunities for new players to get that same investment into themselves,” says Gareth Turnbull, who leads the programme and is also assistant coach of the Football Ferns.

Ironically, part of the reason for the upheaval in personnel from the inaugural year has been the success of the programme so far, which has already resulted in five players – CJ Bott, Meikayla Moore, Aimee Phillips, Katie Rood and Jana Radosavljevic – taking up professional contracts overseas.  

While those players are now lost to the team that will compete in the 17^th grade boys competition, their departure is very much a positive development as the purpose of the FFDP is to prepare players for a potential step up into the professional game.

“To get as many as we did in the first year was probably more than we were aiming for but the beauty is that it sets a really clear pathway for players to now look at and go, ‘Actually, this could be my future’,” Turnbull says.

“We’ve set ourselves up to be a professional environment in an amateur landscape and the players are therefore able to make a transition into the professional world reasonably seamlessly which is great. So that’s still our main focus and we’ve built a strong network of contacts overseas which will help us achieve this goal. We have two players going out on trial in the next month so hopefully there will be a few new professionals over the next few months." 

This weekend will be the group’s first taste of competitive action but they have been training together since the turn of the year under the watchful eye of Turnbull and recently-appointed assistant coach Gemma Lewis, who led Auckland Football to the National Women’s League title last year.

“The first part was preparing a group of players, if selected, for the Football Ferns tour to Spain and we’ve worked hard on integrating a new playing model and style that will be reflective of where Andreas [Heraf] is trying to take the Ferns. We’ve had a couple of friendlies against a Japanese academy side and a boys team along the way so, in terms of preparation for a league competition, it’s been pretty good,” Turnbull says.

The FFDP side will line up in the AFF/NFF 17th grade boys conference for the second year running and Turnbull says the highly competitive nature of that league served its purpose well for his charges last season.

“The conference league was perfect, we finished fourth which was great because it meant we weren’t the dominant team in games but that we also weren’t always defending,” he says.

“If it’s anything like last year, it will provide a stern test physically. We will hopefully have the lion’s share of possession which allows us to build our attacking game – that’s a key component of what we want to do moving forward. We’re looking forward to our first challenge this weekend and a series of 14 games over the next few months.”

Photo: Hannah Blake is among a number of new players to be brought into the Future Ferns Domestic Programme (Photosport)