Ten players have been chosen from Queensland in a 52 player All-Australian squad to face off against each other in Melbourne on September 2.
Arianna Clarke, Kalinda Howarth and Ruby Blair from Coolangatta will take part in the high profile contest, as will Sophie Conway (Zillmere), Gabby Collingwood (UQ), Courteney Bromage (Yeronga), Lauren Bella (Bakers Creek/UQ), Kitara Farrar (South Cairns), Tarni White (Coorparoo) and Jemma Abbott (Maroochydore).
This comes off the back of a highly competitive showing at the NAB AFLW U18 Championships, in which Queensland won two of their five games and lost the other three by an average margin of only 13 points.
“Seven of them in that ten, that are in the All Australian squad, are draft eligible which is good from our point of view,” said Queensland Female Football High Performance Coach and Brisbane Lions AFLW coach, Craig Starcevich.
Lauren Bella was consistent across the U18 carnival in the ruck and named as Queensland’s best.
“She’s just dominant at stoppages, gets after it really well at ground level, follows up, tackles hard, very clean at ground level and can feed out a good handball,” said Starcevich.
“She’ll be a good one to keep an eye out for in the next couple of years.”
Queensland’s strong hand at the talent table his a huge plus for the Brisbane Lions AFLW side, looking ahead to the next few seasons.
“From a Queensland drafting point of view, there’s probably anywhere between four and eight kids that could get drafted this year,” said Starcevich.
“There’s probably the same every year thereafter, of draftable talent coming through, which is good.”
