Football: Season-ending injury brings new challenge for coach Bethanee Witt

Bethanee Witt has taken over coaching duties for Northland FC after suffering a season-ending injury. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Normally a ruptured ACL, sprained MCL and torn meniscus would spell the end of someone's involvement in a football team for at least a season. For Bethanee Witt, however, it's opened a new door.

Witt has taken the coaching role for Northland FC's premier women's side in the NFF/AFF Conference, splitting the duties with her father Alan.

Northland FC are coming off the back of a galling 1-0 loss to Hibiscus Coast, where Witt said connections were an issue.

"I think, as a team, we didn't connect as well as we could have," she said.

"The second half was a better one as we were able to attack more, however the other team simply wanted it more on the day."

"We need to improve our ability to find feet and utilise our wingers. We needed to play more through balls and channel balls to get the attack going.

"What we did well was defending as a team and understanding the individual roles in each position."

The injury was about as serious as a leg injury could get for Witt and put the striker on ice for the season.

But her knowledge of the game and respect within the squad made her an ideal candidate for the coaching position.

"The coaching role came about as our coach at the time was unfortunately unable to continue to take our team for the season due to personal reasons, we ended up having no coach," she said.

"My dad Alan Witt coached the Claudelands Rovers Woman's Northern league a couple years ago in Hamilton, where we actually won the Northern league that year (I played as well).

I then thought that he would be a great coach for us, and, as he had taken a role to help the original coach in the first place, a step up would be great. He had a lot of shift work that was getting in the way of a full time commitment so we decided to do it together.

"That means we can both communicate together about what we think will work best for the team and either one of us can coach them. The girls were very happy with the new roles."

The move from scoring goals to drawing up plays isn't usually an easy passage.

But with a high level of support around Witt, she's relishing the opportunity.

"The transition wasn't too hard. It's a great way to learn as I go as well. All of the girls listen to me and respect me," she said.

"I am quite vocal towards them but they ask questions if they're not sure and don't doubt my decisions. They have all treated me as if I am the coach not a player.

"Of course it makes me miss playing, but it just gives me more incentive to work hard to be ready for next season as well.

"It also helps having a captain (Georgia Green), a vice-captain (Leah Botica) and manager (Danica MacLean) to help us be organised, lead on the field and in trainings to back up my decisions and encourage the team when I'm not on the field."

Northland FC have had a decent start to the campaign but a couple of results on the wrong side of the ledger have made their path to the top of the ladder a bit tougher.

Witt believes they can definitely finish in the top three but there needs to be a look at player development.

"Bringing in new players and losing key players has changed the team slightly, so we need to focus on the new, young girls coming through," she said.

"The number of girls we lack is probably the most common challenge we seem to have. There is a lot of talent in Northland, but not all of the best talent choose to play or wants to play for us.

"If we had a larger number is girls/women at training, we'd have better training drills to work with, different drills, more subs, more competitiveness for each position.

"At the moment, due to numbers, there isn't much competition for each position on the field - most teams have around 16-18 players to select from, whereas we usually have around 9 or 10 turn up to training and are lucky to have subs on a Sunday."

Northland FC's next match is against Te Atatu at home on June 10.