SOUTH Australia’s top AFLW draft talent will prepare to play in a variety of positions in the upcoming Under 18 Championships as the state embarks on maximising its draft potential at the end of the year. Talent Manager of Female Programs Robbie Neill said rotations at national level were the “nature of the beast” in order to still play a team-oriented gamestyle.

“They all understand that, when it’s a bit of a bottleneck and get a whole group of talented players together,” Neill said. “That’s the nature of the beast when it comes to state footy, so they’re very receptive to that, they know what they’re in for. We haven’t had much trouble at all, it’s in fact exciting. We’ll rotate them through a number of positions to show their wares, their full capacity.”

The reigning title holders at the AFLW Under 18 Championships look the team to beat again, but above all else, it was about maximising the draftability for the players, with plenty of first choice midfielders needing to learn other roles in order to fit into a team system.

“It’s quite exciting for them too because if you enter and AFLW system and you’re a mid, well if you’re in the Crows system, Anne Hatchard and Ebony Marinoff aren’t going to let you in so you have to find that secondary or third role,” Neill said. “You don’t necessarily start where you think you’re going to be as long as you get a game and you can develop some other attributes.”

South Australia will not travel to Perth for leisure, with a flight over on the Saturday, stay in the city overnight, and then fly back post-game.

“It’s all business we go in there, we haven’t got a lot of downtime, it’s a case of fly-in, get the job done and then move on so really looking forward to showing off some of the talent that we’ve found since last year to join our 18s,” Neill said. “Jasmine Evans from Centrals in particular has been really good. Really looking forward to seeing how she goes, she’s a beautiful kick of the football. We’ve got a few others who I think can do as well as last year’s group.”

The Under 18s will join the Under 16s on the flight, with the younger South Australian contingent hoping to take out the title at that grade against the Sandgropers. Both the Croweaters and Black Ducks won their respective hitouts against the two Victorian sides and will meet in an effective final.

“It’s an interesting squad though, we probably had half the group that played development league or SANFLW footy and then the other half of the group haven’t played any footy at all this year,” Neill said of the 16s. “They’re either too young to play SANFLW or Development league or they haven’t gone into their club system as yet. It was a bit of an unknown quantity and we obviously found a couple today who haven’t been playing regular footy this season.

“I think we had a few, Sophie Eaton in particular who has had a great, strong season with Centrals showed her class today and we performed pretty well. We were all a bit rusty, but I think we’ll be better for the run against WA at Joondalup.”

Eaton captains the Under 16s side, and both her and Sturt’s Monique Bessen are members of the Under 18s squad as well. Both talented double bottom-agers will play in the 16s match on Sunday, before moving into the 18s squad training for South Australia’s last two carnival games in July against Vic Metro and Queensland.

The sole inclusion to the State Academy from the initial list is top-ager Zara Walsh. the Sturt speedster started coming through the Double Blues program before taking a year off to play local football, but returned over the off-season and has already made an impact at SANFLW League level.

“Zara’s got a lot of pace. Very, very fast,” Neill said. “She wasn’t sure if she wanted to play League footy and then she had a change of heart after 12 months and came back in her draft year. She’s been pretty good for Sturt, played mainly as a high forward similar to Monique Bessen but she can go onto a wing as well. It will be interesting to see what she can produce next week if she gets picked.”

Of course the biggest inclusion for 2023 after missing the 2022 national carnival is potential top pick Lauren Young who returns from a knee reconstruction. The talented West Adelaide utility is tipped to play forward and rotate through the midfield, a similar role to what she has been playing in 2023.

“Her knee reco rehabilitation went really well and she looked like she hasn’t missed a beat,” Neill said. “Unfortunately Westies have lost a lot of cattle over the last six weeks so the team results haven’t been there, but Lauren’s been extra good and she enjoyed a good camp with Tarkyn Lockyer with the AFLW Academy during the week.”

Young is one of five AFLW Academy members, alongside reigning MVP Shineah Goody, and a trio of midfielders, Piper Window, Elaine Grigg and Molly Brooksby. The latter of whom has missed the majority of the season, but returned on the weekend recovering from knee and hamstring issues. All five had a good week with the Academy and have the potential to play inside, outside and even up forward.

“We’ve got a lot of players who can play inside and outside,” Neill said. “We’ve got a few that can do the job and we’ve got a really good running capacity we feel so we think that will be suited to the big oval. It’s a pretty good balanced team.

Among the midfielders who can play inside or outside are Norht Adelaide’s Laela Ebert, West Adelaide’s Asha Dufour and South Adelaide duo Brooke Boileau and Holly Ifould. Neill held special praise for Glenelg utility Poppy Scholz and said she could play “anywhere”.

“She’s a Mark Blicavs for us, she’ll probably play maybe as a second ruck but then be able to play a defensive or forward role if we need, or play as a midfielder,” he said. “She’s that adaptable at 178/179cm. Great vertical leap, she’s a really handy player to have.”

A couple of Panthers who have plied their trade through the Development League but could be wildcards at the championships are ruck Jacinda Schunselaar and defender Alissa Brook.

“(Jacinda’s) been really good in Development League and played one League game so far so really looking forward to her she’s got really good speed,” Neill said. “Another one to look out for is Alissa Brook, she’s another one from South Adelaide, half-back. Really good pace, good speed, quite tall at 176/77cm rebound defender. We’re looking forward to good things from her too.”

Outside the top-age talents, the South Australian crop have a plethora of incredible bottom-age players such as India Rasheed, Lucy Boyd, Charlotte Riggs, Jemma Charity and Violet Patterson who were all members of the successful South Australian squad last year.

“They’re really in good form, all haven’t missed a beat at SANFLW level this year so with Patto, she’s got the running capacity, very similar to her dad who played at Collingwood (Stephen),” Neill said. “She can really run, she’ll probably play as a pressure forward I’d say.

“Jemma Whitington-Charity, she can play inside, she can probably play as a small defender as well. She’s a really good kick, she can help exit the play for you as well. India’s been excellent, she might find herself between the arcs a little more, that beautiful left-foot kick on the wing, but going forward as well and showing her wares around goals.”

The Under 18s match between South Australia and Western Australia takes place at 12pm local time this Sunday at Pentanet Stadium, straight after the Under 16s contest which kicks off from 10am.