Norwood U18 Girls Coach previews inaugural season

Norwood will later this month pay its first ever U18 Girls match for premiership points when the Redlegs host the Eagles at Norwood Oval on February 28. 

The newly established AAMI Talent League U18 Girls competition will kick off in 2026, replacing the SANFLW Development League which ran from 2022 to 2025.

Two-time North Adelaide SANFLW Premiership player Bri Arthur will coach the Norwood U18 side in its inaugural season.

“I am excited, and excited for the girls,” Arthur said on The Redlegs Review Podcast this week.

“It’s obviously the inaugural year, so you don’t really know what to expect with what players will do weekly. Obviously there’s a really top end group of the U18 Girls age group, who are more than likely gonna be playing SANFLW.

“That’s not just Norwood, that’s from other clubs as well. You don’t know if you’re going to expect to see the high calibre players in the lineup that week or what you do, but, we’ll just roll with what we’ve got and super excited for all the girls to have an opportunity.”

Like a lot of clubs, Norwood have the likes of Lani Cocks, Elke Cameron, Charlee Brooksby, Kate Alexander and Sharmaine Crosby (who already have multiple SANFLW matches under their belt) to select at U18 level, despite them forming part of the Redlegs Senior Women’s squad.

“They’re all eligible to play U18s,” Arthur said.

“There’s an influx of girls that could come in, but it just depends on how they’re going with League training and selection, because their priority is to play League, as the U18s coach I wish it could be U18s.

“We’ve got enough in our U18 group that will be able to step up without those girls, we’ll be fine.”

Arthur said her group had been training alongside the Senior Women’s at Norwood.

“We just went with a one squad approach, so we warm up together, do the conditioning together,  skills rotations together, and then we split in the back half of the session if there’s game style drills – just because our season starts a lot earlier then the SANFLW.

“Throughout the season, if you’ve got injuries that pop up and things like that and who’s gonna come in? It would be our girls that step in. So we need to be ready as well as an U18s group that everyone is ready to play.

“We’ve worked like closely with Rexy (Senior Women’s Coach Ben Hunt) in terms of his structures and making sure we’re implementing them at U18 level so that if they do get the call up, they know exactly what they should be doing.”

Arthur said she had a talented group of players that she was working with in the U18 group, including several that have been named in the U16 State Squad.

“Mia Wood is in the State U16s squad, she’s been training fantastically,” she said.

“She played through the U15 program with the National Championships in October, as did Skyla James and they are just really good ball users, both of them.

“There’s also Isla Wigzell who is just a bull magnet, and one that’s come over from North Adelaide is Emmerson Lihou which I’m very lucky to have her here. I am really excited for her to be able to play because I know that she has wanted to play at Norwood.”

Listen to the full interview with Bri Arthur via the below episode link.