Tara Murray
Some coaching roles mean more than others and taking on the Hume City Broncos women’s Big V championship role is pretty special for Brooke Davenport.
Davenport has been announced as the Broncos coach for next season replacing Carey Papanicolau, who has stepped away from coaching.
The new coach knows the Broncos program better than more.
“I’ve been at the club many, many years,” she said. “I’ve played here as a junior. I’ve been an assistant coach all up about six years in the women’s, five youth league and last season with the champ women.
“I’ve coached juniors there for a long time as well, I do a lot up there as well.
“I suppose it is just the progression of it all. It means a lot, it’s my club, it’s where I grew up.”
Davenport takes on the role after a tough 2024 where not much went right for the Broncos.
The club lost both imports with season ending injuries along with other injuries in the side among other things..
It gave more of the young talent within the Broncos system the chance to step up.
“There were more minutes out there for them to grab hold of,” Davenport said. “We lost a few close ones and a few games that got too far away from us as well.
“We’ll look to build on that. We’ve got 16s and 18s coming through and set them through to youth league.
“I think for us now to give our youth league team and our champ women’s team back together on the same page and watch the progression/.
“That is probably the main priority.”
Davenport said they were looking to try and bring back some past players back to the club including some she has coached previously.
She said they were looking at a couple of guards at the moment and they will also look outside of the local area as well.
Davenport said she’s busy having chats with everyone, including looking at imports and some Australian talent that is out there.
Vice president and interim general manager Glen Milner said installing someone familiar with the club’s history and culture was an important step in restoring a winning disposition for the women’s program.
“We are confident that Brooke’s Broncos background will drive a level of commitment to team bonding, playing for the uniform and a clearly discernible style of play that has been missing in recent Big V seasons” he said.
“Putting together a playing roster that signs up to those priorities will be key to realizing our objective of figuring in post season action.”
Tim Devlin, who successfully coached the Broncos youth team for many seasons and coached the senior team for one year, returns as an assistant coach, while Andre Brewty has agreed to continue his role as a development coach.
