New Essendon general manager of football Josh Mahoney believes integrating the men’s and women’s football programs is one of the keys to a thriving modern club.

After spending 13 years at Melbourne where he headed up the football department and oversaw a successful launch of the Demons’ AFLW team, Mahoney finds himself in a similar position as the Bombers endeavour to field an AFLW side by 2022.

With the club’s VFLW team in the midst of preparing for their third season and the prospect of an AFLW berth on the cards, Mahoney said he was thrilled to be back at the club he captained at VFL level during an exciting new era.

“That’s an exciting part of the job to be involved with that (potential AFLW licence) at the right time,” Mahoney said.

“I’ve been to a couple of training sessions to watch the VFLW girls already and it's good there’s already some involvement with women’s football.”

The Bombers could not be better preared to facilitate an AFLW program, as the $21million stage two development of the NEC Hangar draws closer to completion.

Slated to be completed in February, the upgrade will provide world-class female facilities including a dedicated AFLW change room, showers, medical facilities which include a doctor’s office, strapping benches and physio spaces, and an AFLW auditorium.

Mahoney said the possibility of having the AFL and AFLW programs housed in the same location would do wonders for the overall culture of the club.

“I think that’s important that you have to start to set up the environment that there are men and women in the environment all the time,” Mahoney said.

“It just becomes what a club is (when) you’ve got a men’s team and a women’s team.

“While it's only VFLW at the moment, we think we can get a lot of games out of integrating that program with our AFL program, and that’ll set us up for an AFLW licence.”