Women in Coaching Month: Concussion retirement opens coaching door for Reilly

The saying ‘when one door closes, another one opens’ rings true for the football journey of award-winning sports journalist and Perth Football League coach Eliza Reilly.

Reilly, who’s a premiership-winning forward-line coach for University Football Club in the PFL’s A-Grade Women’s competition, dabbled in coaching during her days as a budding journalist on the Gold Coast.

But it wasn’t until when she made the tough decision to retire after her third concussion in 2024, the same year as she reached her 50th game for the club, that the University stalwart and prominent AFL and AFLW writer’s coaching journey really took off.

“I dabbled in some junior football coaching while attending university on the Gold Coast but my coaching journey didn’t truly begin until last year,” Reilly explained.

“I first started playing at the University Football Club in 2020 and played my 50th game for the club in 2024.

“Unfortunately, I made the difficult decision to retire from football that year after suffering a serious concussion – my third in total – that took two and a half months to recover from.

“I couldn’t even entertain the thought of walking away from the club entirely.

I’ve absolutely loved my time at University and knew I wanted to stay involved in some capacity.

“After meeting with our A-Grade and A-Reserves head coaches, I was convinced that coaching was my next move.

“I’d like to think I offer more as a coach than I ever did as a player. Hopefully I’ve passed on a few small nuggets to the next generation.”

After five years playing for University, Reilly has spent the past two in the coaches’ box.

She said despite not being able to take the field these days, her favourite part of coaching was game day.

“My favourite part about coaching is definitely game day,” Reilly said.

“I love the strategic side of football, analysing what your team is doing well, what needs to change and what the opposition is throwing at you.

“There’s no better feeling than when you see something you trained during the week or discussed during the quarter-time break come to fruition on-field.”

Reilly was grateful to be involved in University’s A-Grade premiership last season after several near misses including a heart-breaking double-overtime loss in 2022 when she was concussed in the opening term.

“The highlight of my coaching career so far was definitely playing a small part in University’s A-Grade premiership in 2025,” she recalled.

“It was the culmination of several years of hard work, near misses and incredible memories.

“The last time we played in a grand final was 2022, a devastating six-point loss to Warnbro in double overtime. I was concussed during the first period of overtime so being able to hang around and witness our redemption was a special moment.”

The theme for this year’s Women in Coaching Month is Keep Leading Keep Coaching.

Reilly highlighted the importance of Women in Coaching Month to keep the number of women in coaching roles growing.

“Women in Coaching Month is vitally important because in my 10 years of playing football, I’ve only ever had two female coaches,” Reilly said.

“That’s not to say that men shouldn’t have the opportunity to coach women’s football because there are some incredible mentors out there who care deeply about female footy.

“But you can’t be what you can’t see and the more we remove barriers for aspiring female coaches, the better the women’s football landscape will be.

“Women inherently understand women – how we play the game, how we view the game and what we want to get out of the game. Celebrating that is the first step towards growing female participation even further.

“It’s been awesome to see the growth of women in coaching roles.

“When I look at my own club, not only have we had past players take on assistant coaching roles, but we now have current players who have started coaching junior girls football.

“It’s been an awesome evolution to be a part of and they’re now bringing their new knowledge and experience back to our club.”

As for advice for aspiring female coaches?

“Just make a start,” Reilly said.

“Women’s football is booming and as a result, there are so many teams and clubs who would be lucky to have a female coach.

“Find your local, reach out and start at whatever level you feel most comfortable with. Oh, and don’t be afraid to steal drills off TikTok.”

Find out more about how you can get into coaching here

Written by: Jordan McArdle (WA Football)