Melbourne captain Daisy Pearce has explained why we will likely see a boom in the talent level of AFLW players in the next few years.
The women’s competition is set to enter its third year in February 2019 and Tim Watson told a story about how he was blown away be the standard of a junior game he saw recently.
“I tell you what, I watched an under 18 game which was a curtain raiser over in Adelaide before the EJ Whitten game, the talent that is coming through at that younger level, I was blown away by the standard of this under 18 game,” Watson told SEN Breakfast.
“There’s going to be some unbelievable talent that comes through over the next few years.”
Pearce said the access to junior footy and elite training makes this next crop of talent incredibly exciting.
“When you look at AFLW and the names you might know right now, those players we’ve thought to be the great players of the competition, they’re not freak talents who are coincidentally good at football, they had little, strange opportunities to play the game growing up,” Pearce said.
“Whether they grew up in the country and their dad coached or their brother got them involved in the team, so that thread of playing junior footy has made them good.
“That’s the norm now.
“Those girls that you watched in Adelaide, they’ve all played junior footy and now they’re in talent pathways, they’ve played TAC Cup, so the football ability is just going to be the norm and the talent pool is just going to explode over the next few years.
“It will improve quickly from here on in.”
AFLW players are set to receive a pay increase for the 2019 season under the competition’s first Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Listen to Daisy Pearce's chat with Garry Lyon and Tim Watson on SEN Breakfast in the player below