BRIGHT’S Ashleigh Grimes is optimistic the players at Pioneer Park have what it takes to climb the ladder in 2025, with the right guiding hand.

After coming runner up best and fairest in her first year at Bright, Grimes has been tapped to take on the role of playing coach of the A grade squad for the upcoming season.

Grimes comes with a wealth of knowledge from coaching representative sides in Melbourne, and will be helped out where possible by mother Clare, who has coached at Division 1 level in the VNL.

Grimes said the appointment had come around quickly, but she was looking forward to the challenge.

“I coached down in Melbourne a fair bit and I loved it – I didn’t really think it was an option up here, and it all came about,” she said.

“I was at the (O&K) grand final, one of the A grade girls came up to me and said ‘we think you would be really good at coaching A grade, is it something you’d ever consider?’ and I said yeah, definitely.

“My mum coached VNL as well, so she’s going to try and get up as much as she can and help out.

“We both did a lot of representative netball coaching, and I played regional netball down in Melbourne and Mum coached that.

“She’s amazing, she taught me a lot of what I know.”

Bright hasn’t finished higher than eighth since before COVID, but Grimes said there was definitely potential.

“The talent is there, it's just moulding them with a little bit of coaching,” she said.

“I think it’s about getting them to have the belief that they are good enough to be winners.

“I think a lot of them after a lot of years of not being super successful, they don’t realise that.

“Coming in this year, there is so much talent within the group and a lot of young talent too, which is really exciting.

“I think getting them that coaching that’s really going to teach them the basic things they probably haven’t experienced before and they can do – it’s just helping them get there.”

Bright will continue to finalise their coaching panel ahead of preseason, but plans were already in place at Pioneer Park to make 2025 their year.

“Nic Connolly, who was the under 17s coach this year, she’s organised a bit of a Monday night social comp, so a lot of the girls are coming down and playing that which is really good,” Grimes said.

“I’ve spoken to one of the local gyms and they’re keen for us to use them for preseason, and I’m getting in contact with a few other clubs for praccy matches.”