A TALENT League Girls premiership with the Dandenong Stingrays, National Academy representation and a strong Vic Country campaign were the highs amongst some niggling injuries that were the only downside of an otherwise incredible year for Sophie White.

“Personally it’s been a bit of a chaotic year,” White said at the National Draft Combine. “Lucky enough to play Vic Country and National Academy, but then also had a couple of injuries throughout the year so haven’t strung too many Talent League games together.

“Such an awesome year, so proud of the Stingrays girls and so lucky to be a part of such an amazing group that have made history for the Stingrays winning their first flag. Vic Country was awesome, such an amazing group and National Academy was such an experience that I’ll never forget.”

The whole grand final week – which was really a fortnight given the bye in between the preliminary finals win and the big day – was an “amazing” experience for White and her teammates, as they went on to make history and become the first Dandenong Stingrays girls to taste premiership success.

“It’s definitely a massive build-up and the week off probably doesn’t help,” White said. “There’s a lot of thinking about it and probably too much thinking and too much planning that goes into it, but the girls were awesome.

“Such a good group and the better team so connected, I spoke to a couple of the Oakleigh girls after the game and they just said ‘you were a stronger team than us’ which is so amazing. We’ve got so much talent in our team that it doesn’t matter whose playing where, the girls just play for the team and not themselves.”

What stood out about Dandenong is the fact that there wasn’t an obvious star player. White was the club’s National Academy member through the season, but as has been the rhetoric throughout the club, it was a team effort with even contirbutions across the board.

“Yeah 100 per cent (our talent was balanced),” White said. “Even the lower end of our talent is still elite and such a good balance of everyone happy to play anywhere compared to a team where someone is best on ground every single game because that’s not what the team needs. “Even the likes of Evi Irving and Zoe Zach playing in the backline because that’s what our team needed at points and it’s really selfless and helpful for our team.”

For White, she has learnt to relax a little more and no stress when things aren’t going her way, with that element to her game a big improvement area.

“Personally mine’s been my emotional regulation and persistence,” she said. “A lot of last year if something hard happened I’d just give up, but this year I personally worked on being mentally stronger, mentally fitter throughout the game.”

On-field, White is still developing both her strength and athletic running capacity, though she was “happy” with her 1.6km time-trial time to kick off the combine. That was her biggest room for improvement from the physical testing and she waled away pleased. However she is determined to go to another level if selected in the AFLW Draft.

“I’d just get stuck straight into it, not fluffing around,” White said. “Obviously it would be awesome to just meet the girls and enter such a professional environment, but to be the best version of myself in just under 12 months time, I want to be stronger, fitter, faster.”

As for her first role at the elite level given the scareness with which rucks start on-ball in year one, White said she was happy to play anywhere, but her defensive mindset had her leaning more towards the back 50.

“I’d love to see myself starting as a key back personally,” she said. “I think I run more defensively, and read the game better as a defender rather than a forward, but it would truly depend on what the team needs from me at the time.”

DRAFT FEATURES:

New South Wales: Evie Bowie, Frances Walsh, Majella Day, Morgan Stevens, Ashleigh Barlow, Grace Tracey
Queensland: Zoe Petrides, Summer Browning, Aiyana Pritchard
South Australia: Emily Mableson, Emma Charlton, Ruby Lynch, Layla Vizgaudis, Lucy Moore
Vic Country: Greea McKeegan, Lily Milner, Eliza Roche, Lacey Nihill
Vic Metro: Bailee Martin, Tayla Olivieri, Maddison Meagher, Brylee Anderson, Grace McIntyre, Alli Allen, Kiara Boyd, Isabella Mazzei
Western Australia: Lexi Strachan, Mia Carlshausen