{"id":326588,"date":"2025-12-04T06:19:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T06:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/326588\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T06:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T06:19:08","slug":"richmond-sack-aflw-coach-ryan-ferguson-and-football-boss-kate-sheahan-after-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/326588\/","title":{"rendered":"Richmond sack AFLW coach Ryan Ferguson and football boss Kate Sheahan after review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richmond<\/a> have sacked their AFLW<\/a> coach Ryan Ferguson after conducting a thorough review into their women\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

Along with Ferguson, high-profile football boss Kate Sheahan (a former player and daughter of respected sport journalist Mike Sheahan) was also axed.<\/p>\n

The decision comes after the team finished third last with just two wins for the season.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

Amid the trainwreck of a year, the club made the curious decision just a few months ago to extend Ferguson\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n

The Tigers then announced in October that they were conducting a full review of their women\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

The findings were released on Thursday, with Richmond CEO Shane Dunne saying the review had been thorough and carefully considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could not ignore our on-field results in 2025. Ultimately this is about building a program that gives our female athletes the best chance of success,\u201d Dunne said.<\/p>\n

Ferguson has been at Richmond for more than a decade, involved in their AFL, AFLW and VFL programs.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u201cUltimately the decision was made that we needed a different voice, and we will now commence the search to find the best possible senior coach for our AFLW team,\u201d Dunne said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thank him for his significant contribution and wish he and his family all the very best for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the football department would be restructured Sheahan\u2019s role of head of women\u2019s football had been made redundant.<\/p>\n

The club will now appoint a general manager of women\u2019s football who will report directly to the CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs executive head of women\u2019s football, Kate Sheahan has done a huge amount of work building our AFLW program from the ground up and we thank her for her dedication and commitment,\u201d Dunne said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has taken an enormous amount of energy and passion, and Kate has brought that from the moment she walked in the door. We wish her and her family the best for whatever comes next.\u201d<\/p>\n

The review was led by former AFL club executive Brad Lloyd and supported by specialists in elite women\u2019s team sports.<\/p>\n

Richmond said the scope of the review included program structure and governance, culture and leadership, coaching and player development, high performance and medical support, recruitment and list strategy.<\/p>\n

Among a number of other decisions taken, Richmond said they would:<\/p>\n

– Develop a new AFLW Performance Strategy that defines how we will close the gap and consistently compete in finals.<\/p>\n

– Re-structure the high-performance and medical functions to drive standards and create better alignment and clearer accountabilities.<\/p>\n

– Increase its investment in leadership training for the player leadership group to more effectively drive agreed values and behaviours.<\/p>\n

– Re-define list build principles to align with the future game model.<\/p>\n

– Appoint a full-time AFLW Operations and Scheduling Manager to centralise communications and accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are absolutely committed to delivering a successful AFLW program and this review was an important part of that,\u201d Dunne said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have now established a clear direction, and we look forward to the work ahead as we prepare for next season and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richmond have not won an AFLW premiership and only featured in finals twice since they joined the league in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richmond have sacked their AFLW coach Ryan Ferguson after conducting a thorough review into their women\u2019s program. Along…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[638,25912,64,63,596,1625,672,3863,588,85],"class_list":["post-326588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-afl","tag-aflw","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-lifestyle","tag-richmond-tigers","tag-sponsored-content","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}