DANDENONG Stingrays kick-started their 2026 Talent League Girls season, accounting for Geelong Falcons by 39 points in a comfortable victory. While the Stingrays have no lack of talent at their disposal disposal, one of the more compelling storylines of the afternoon was how top-age defender-turned-midfielder Scarlett Marsh went moving into a predominant on-ball role.

We took a closer look at Marsh and her performance in the win, assessing how the role change alters her game slightly, and how it could help her going forward.

>> AFLW DRAFT Q&A: Scarlett Marsh (Dandenong Stingrays)

Scarlett Marsh

Club: Dandenong Stingrays
Height: 162cm
Date of Birth: 03/04/2008

STRENGTHS:

+ Foot skills
+ Footy IQ
+ Decision making
+ Outside game
+ Vision

IMPROVEMENTS:

– Strength
– Contested work
– Left-foot consistency

ROLE CHANGE

Marsh previously operated primarily from defensive 50, with small stints around the ball. Now, the top-ager has a predominantly on-ball role with defensive rotations, such as in the last quarter against the Falcons.

SEASON SO FAR

Statistics: 22 disposals, 3 marks, 5 tackles, 6 clearances, 5 inside 50s, 1 behind (Round 2)

Marsh has been described by those inside Dandenong as destined for more midfield time in 2026, and it was a philosophy the Stingrays put into practice against the Falcons. She started at the centre bounce and spent the majority of the game operating as the sweeper both at the stoppages and behind play. She positioned herself to read taps effectively, and while she was capable of winning it straight off the ruck’s hands, she was most effective when in a second-possession winning capacity.

She is best suited as that sweeper because of her smarts and awareness to move through traffic, rather than being a crash-and-bash inside ball-winner which is not her go given her lighter built. It is a smart way to ease her into the role, allowing her natural football instincts and kicking quality to do the work without demanding the physical grunt of a pure inside midfielder straight away.

The numbers reflect an emerging onballer rather than a finished product – 14 contested possessions alongside nine uncontested – tells of someone feeling their way through the role, with the ball use split of eight effective kicks and seven ineffective highlights that the step up in contested volume is bringing more pressure and less time than she had operating from the back half last year.

GAME ANALYSIS

The first quarter offered an immediate window into what Marsh could be. In the opening three minutes, she intercepted inside 50, turned onto her left to find Marlee Black on the lead with a neat placement kick, then followed that with a lovely weighted pass clean over the head of a Falcons opponent – centimetre perfect.

Those moments showed exactly why the Stingrays are so keen to extract more from her inside. The ball use is elite for her age group. She was working at the centre stoppages as a sweeper in behind, reading the tap and operating as a second possession winner rather than getting into the bodies of opponents, and on the occasions she had time and space, it showed.

The second quarter gave a fuller picture of the transition challenges she is navigating. She was sharp at times – a strong tackle on one opponent to lock it up, immediately backed up with another on a bigger Falcons player before her opponents got her hands free – and her ability to read a tap from the ruck, charge forward, and hit a leading target at the top of the fifty was excellent.

But there were moments that revealed further improvement to come. At one stage she got drawn into a stoppage and opponent Ava Bilyk snuck out the back behind her. It was a good learning lesson for Marsh who is used to being such a proactive player with her ball-winning, compared to Bilyk who has spent more time on the inside and can remain highly accountable, but also having the greater knowledge of when to sneak into space for the stoppage. She was also on the bench for a lengthy stretch mid-quarter, which likely reflected the coaching staff managing her load through the new role carefully.

The third and fourth quarters reinforced the pattern. Her best moments continued to be the ones that drew on what she already does well, her smarts. One such example was a punch of the ball cleverly from a defensive 50 kick-out allowing a teammate to run the corridor and go end-to-end; as well as a clever tap along the ground inside 50 that, despite Marsh physically being blocked by Bilyk, opened space for the Stingrays to score.

In addition to that, her huge run-down tackle on Loki Gillett in defensive 50 showed a defensive nous to accompany her natural offensive game. Her rarer errors also came in familiar moments. When she threw it on the boot in pressure situations the disposal could be wayward, and some of the positional decisions in the last quarter, where she went in to apply a tackle at a stoppage and left space behind her for a Falcons player to receive the handball and have a shot, show the tactical learning still ahead.

DRAFT DISCUSSION

Last year Rookie Me Central flagged Marsh as one of the best kicks in the draft crop, and nothing from Saturday changed that view. What this year is about is answering the question of whether she can translate those qualities into midfield and expand her value and versatility at the next level.

Saturday’s performance suggested the ceiling is significant. Marsh said in the preseason that she modelled her game on Tilly Lucas-Rodd – a player known for running off the half-back and using the ball with composure – and you can see those traits clearly. The sweeper role in the middle is a smart entry point, and her kicking under no pressure is genuinely damaging.

The questions that 2026 needs to answer are around her ability to maintain that quality when the game speeds up around her in the middle, her left-foot consistency which she has flagged herself as a development area, and her body contest work when she does become a genuine first-receiver onballer. With the Stingrays backed up to make another finals run, she will get every opportunity to answer them.

SUMMARY

Marsh’s transition is in its early stages, but the building blocks are there, and Marsh is getting a taste for more permanent midfield minutes through the sweeper role, while the Stingrays can still benefit from her smarts and ball use off half-back. She is one who has some clear draftable qualities, and if she round out her game, then the Stingrays youngster can take her game to another level in 2026.