The University of Queensland (UQ) are the team to beat in the QAFL Women’s competition this year, after taking out the premiership in 2021.

Although going back-to-back is one of the hardest tasks in football, Red Lions coach Ross Clayfield said that 2022 is a new kettle of fish and that his side is not looking to build on last year, but rather to “forge a new identity”.

“I know it sounds a little corny but we really not talking about premierships,” Clayfield said. “We didn’t talk a lot about the premiership last year either. We have a very different group, I guess the AFLW involvement this year is going to be pretty minimal compared to last year and we were a top two team throughout the season last year. An influx of our Lions girls certainly was a big factor, but this year will be very different.

“We’ve had retirements and we’ve had a couple of important players move with work and those Brisbane Lions players won’t be available in the same way, so it’s such a different team. We’re really just forging a new identity and not really talking about building on last year, it’s more about a new adventure this year.”

Despite the challenges facing Queenslanders at the moment, Clayfield said that preseason had gone pretty well for the most part.

“I would have said amazingly well up until 48 hours ago,” he said with a laugh. “We’ve just had a few hiccups, a few injuries and a Covid related thing or two, and we’re probably going to go into Round 1 a little understrength but that’s okay, we’ll keep fighting on.”

Like many QAFLW clubs, UQ had not avoided the wrath of the South-East Queensland floods, nor the threat of Covid.

“Well the floods are a factor, and a couple of players in our team were affected pretty seriously” said Clayfield. “Training has been affected a little bit but not too bad with some weather, but that’s fairly normal this time of year but we’ve managed to get a couple of good sessions in one way or the other most weeks, so we’re feeling pretty good about where we’re at.”

Alongside former Carlton Blue Laura Ernst, Clayfield mentioned a number of exciting new recruits to his side for 2022.

“Probably the big ones would be a couple of girls from one of our rival club Wilston Grange, Kaitlyn Day and Kristen Tyquin. They’ve settled really, really well into the club and just a dynamic kind of pair who are probably going to mainly play forward this year, which we’re really excited about.

“A couple of Academy players, Kadie Fletcher, who’s been picked for Queensland has come across as well, and a really sad one, Brooke Sheridan, actually a girl who’s at my high school and a really talented young forward, sadly did her ACL in an academy game about six weeks ago. We were really looking forward to seeing her play but obviously she’s going to work hard over the next year.”

When asked who was going to have a breakout this season this year, one name sprung to Clayfield’s mind.

“Well if I was to judge on the two practice games we’ve just had, Lauren Middleton’s probably been the real standout. She’s sort of diminutive in stature, but has played through the middle and played on the wing in our premiership and played a bit forward, but yeah playing in the middle and just doing great things at the moment.”

The Red Lions had a couple of practice matches leading into Round 1, with very different final results.

“Maroochydore was our first one two weeks ago and [it was] a pretty heavy defeat to be honest, we were a fairly weakened side. Then we just played Aspley this weekend and it was kind of the opposite, so we had a good win and got something closer to our full strength side on the park.”