Pearce would not have been the first female assistant coach for a men’s AFL team. Peta Searle was a development coach at St Kilda in 2014 before taking the reins of the Saints’ AFLW team.

The accelerated program allows assistant coaches to be employed for two years and be exposed to all elements of coaching,including match committee meetings,game-day roles and mentoring. The positions are co-funded by the club and the AFL,with exemptions in the soft football department spending cap during the two-year period,with six female coaches to be employed across the competition.

Pearce has this season shifted into Seven’s commentary booth,replacing Wayne Carey as an expert commentator on Friday nights,having been used on the boundary line through previous seasons.

Pearce,like all AFLW players,isawaiting confirmation on when the new season will begin. This almost certainly will be in August,ending what has become a typical summer start,but negotiations with the AFL over pay and conditions has prompted a delay.

That pre-season training will soon start was another reason Pearce opted to play on,for waiting months until the campaign had started closer to summer had been difficult.

“It helps from a physical point of view. The thing I find tricky is stopping,especially in AFLW when it is part-time and when you spend so much time in the proverbial wilderness waiting for the season to come back and having to train by yourself. That’s the thing I don’t love,” she said.

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