Lake Macquarie joins NPLW, set to replace Warners Bay from 2025

Warners Bay president Nathan Aurisch said the decision to transfer the club's NPLW licence to the Roosters came after a thorough evaluation of the resources and infrastructure required to successfully manage a premier league program in a rapidly growing women's football landscape.

A decision was finalised at a club meeting on Friday night with the Roosters set to rejoin the region's top-flight women's football competition from 2025.

"The club ultimately found itself unable to meet the increasing demands and criteria associated with managing a premier program, including volunteers and financial requirements, without impacting the community football program," Aurisch said.

"Warners Bay FC will still fully commit to community football and will continue to provide an enjoyable environment for girls and boys to play football.

"This transition presents an opportunity to further strengthen women's football in the Lake Macquarie area and build upon the foundation laid by Warners Bay FC."

Warners Bay have experienced highs and lows since joining Northern NSW Football's premier women's competition in 2015.

After collecting the wooden spoon in their first season, the Cassidy Davis-led Panthers won the 2016 grand final then were a top-four side for seven straight seasons with a host of high-profile players on board.

They were losing grand finalists in 2017, 2018 and 2020 before capturing the premiership-championship double in 2022.

The Panthers have been in a rebuilding phase since, finishing rooted to the bottom of the points table last year and are caught in a two-way tussle with Mid Coast for the wooden spoon this campaign.

Lake Macquarie had success during a previous short stint in the premier league, securing back-to-back premierships in 2012 and 2013.

Roosters president Steve Graham said the club has a strong focus on development and is excited to be entering the NPLW space.

Lake Macquarie will also take on Warners Bay's Junior Development League (JDL) and Premier Youth League (PYL) programs for girls.

"We've been working hard over the last two years to build the club from the bottom up to be a successful development academy here in the northern area," Graham said.

"We've always had premier pathways for boys, but I've got a daughter myself and I wanted to have a club that could provide opportunities for the girls that were exactly the same as the boys and it was something we've been talking to Northern NSW Football [NNSWF] about for some time.

"Our premier arm and our junior arm merged last year to become one club and we started a women's football academy in Macquarie because one of the things we identified was there's not a lot of really sophisticated training structures out there to get girls from a community space into that premier space.

"We saw it as a bit of a gap and we got 180 girls registered. Prior to that the club had 20 or 30 girls total."

Graham said Lake Macquarie planned to work with Warners Bay to transition a majority of players and coaches across to the Roosters and would also be putting out expressions of interest for 2025 next week.

"We're super excited," he said.

"We want to have a grassroots all the way to premier and beyond structure in our club and it's great that we can now do it for boys and girls."

The women's competition transitioned to NPL status in 2022 and currently has several A-League players signed at various clubs.

"Lake Macquarie have been pretty proactive in this space for the last couple of years about looking to be a part of it," NNSWF general manager operations Liam Bentley said.

"They've had many conversations with Warners Bay in the past as well and it's a pretty positive move in my opinion."