Crows women’s coach Bec Goddard knew it was a historic moment that warranted some special acknowledgement.

The first official training session for the Club’s new women’s squad started when Goddard called the group of listed and development players into a tight huddle in the middle of Football Park on Monday evening.

“I’m going to speak to the girls about how they must be nervous, because I’m nervous,” Goddard said before the excited players arrived at West Lakes.

“Those nerves come from a variety of places. Some of us have been involved in women’s football since it started, and others are coming in at a time where they’ve really only played a handful of games and fortuitously ended up at the Crows.”

Her players’ skill level and years of experience may be varied, but the coach is already proud of the group of women the Crows have gathered.

“I’m going to talk to them about being every day superheroes, because they’ve got life going on around them, work, study, sometimes both,” she said.

“We’re all coming in as equals tonight.”

The nervous energy and excitement has been building since the AFL Women’s Draft on October 12, but the focus needs to shift as the season fast approaches.

“The point I’m going to make tonight is: we don’t get nervous, we get ready,” she said.

Many team members have already spent weeks training voluntarily, concentrating on strength and conditioning.

“They’re already in much better condition than they were four to five weeks ago,” Goddard said.

The coaches have also spent a lot of time planning the look and feel of the pre-season.

“We’re a coaching team, just like the players are a team,” she said.

“We sat down a while ago and identified the key areas we want to improve on immediately.”

The team’s pre-season is made up of two four-week blocks either side of a Christmas break, and then Round One begins.

It’s an unusual start to the pre-season, with nine girls still based in the Northern Territory and others interstate or overseas, but Goddard isn’t fazed by the prospect of bringing the team together.

“Everybody thinks it’s going to be our greatest weakness,” she said, but “we talk about it being our greatest strength.”

“The competition can expect the unexpected from us. They don’t know what we’re up to and a lot of our players are relative unknowns in the female football space.”

The Northern Territory girls held an identical training session in Darwin on Monday night.

“There’s not one change to what they’re doing there, so they’ll all be enduring the same thing together,” Goddard said.

The Crows are also building a bigger group of talent, with up-and-coming South Australian players training with the team as a development squad.

“There are other people who want to play in the AFLW and play for the Crows,” she said. “We identified that talent in SA and NT and we are bringing them up with us.”

The squad united at the AFL Induction in Melbourne on November 11-12, and will meet again in Adelaide on December 2 for one of two pre-season training camps.