The Southern Saints are ready to build on last season when they take on Collingwood's VFLW side at RSEA Park this Sunday afternoon.

It has been an off season of changes for the club as they acquired up to 14 new players for this season, including AFLW players such as Cat Phillips, Emma Mackie, Claudia Whitfort, Jess Sedunary, Kate McCarthy, Nat Exon, Darcy Guttridge, Courtney Munn, Ali Drennan, Selena Karlson and Rhiannon Watt.

Love women's footy? Click here to subscribe for updates.

Culture

One of the areas that the Southern Saints and coach Peta Searle are working towards this season is to create a solid culture for the club.

“It’s important to build on it (last year) because there is still some key people involved in this group,” Searle told saints.com.au

“It is important to build on the way they went about it, in terms of the spirit, the culture and belief.

“That helped laid some really good foundation for us to now go ahead and build on our footy.”

Searle said that the players who have signed on for this year, will help drive the culture she is looking for.

“The AFLW girls have been communicating a fair bit with each other so they are already building connections whether that be interstate or with us and that only works on the back of the openness of the group that we have got here,” she said.  

“They are pretty selfless and they are very open in terms of welcoming people.”

Development

After finishing in eighth spot on the ladder and with a 5-9 win-loss ratio last year, Searle said it was important to keep progressing.

“You don’t know what you are going to get each week,” she said.  

“You just got to try and keep working on developing your system and developing the skills and education but also their own skills.”

Players to look out for

With such an influx of talent it is kind of hard to know which players to look out for but a few have caught the eye of the coach.

“Olivia Vesely and Louella McCarthy,” she said

“She (McCarthy) is very clever, excellent ball user.

“Tara Bohanna had a pretty good game against Melbourne University, we need Tara to keep growing and keep going forward.

“She leads up and her body work is improving and reads the play well and because she reads the play well she gets in good positions.”

Despite coming from a hockey background Searle was impressed by former Melbourne University player Elizabeth Keaney.

“She is across the half back flank and she sees the game really well runs and attacks the gaps, looks to create," Searle said.

“She is pretty important in terms of rebound.”