MELBOURNE women’s coach Mick Stinear provides an update on all 27 players in the lead-up to the inaugural AFL Women’s competition. Be sure to check back each day over the festive season and new year, as we present the 2017 squad …

Daisy Pearce
She’s been excellent. It’s been such an advantage having her working in this environment full-time. She gets to observe the coaches in the men’s environment and how they go about it. Daisy’s constantly learning, developing and interacting with the men’s team around their welfare, so what she’s learned has gone through the roof. Just to have a player that has the same understanding as the coaches, in terms of how we want to play, has been excellent. She’s assisting in driving standards at training, which has been fantastic. She has also helped younger players pick up concepts really easily. When she gets the ball in her hand, in game sense drills, things start to happen. She’s a really good role model for us and she’s determined to play her best footy with us. We’ve got no doubt, even after all she’s achieved, that her best footy is still ahead of her, so that’s a pretty scary prospect for the opposition.

Lauren Pearce
Lauren’s only played a year of footy. She’s starting to really impress us and she will be our main ruck. She’s very good at controlling space and has an excellent pair of hands. I think she’ll be a dangerous prospect as a ruck/forward. Lauren has good endurance and is fearless come game time. The work we’ve been able to put into her so far – and will before the season starts – will be pretty impressive, in terms of where her development gets to. She’s only going to improve, having had one year of footy under her belt.

Catherine Phillips
Cat’s recently finished up her ultimate frisbee commitments, with her last tournament in the Philippines. She’s right behind Karen Paxman in the running. They’re the two that have been leading the way, with the conditioning. I think that’s really important because 16-a-side is going to demand us to be fit and relentless with our work-rate. She reads the game really well and she’ll do a lot of damage out on the wing and as a half-forward who gets up the ground. There won’t be many in the competition that will be able to run with her all day. I see her getting on the end of a few and finding a lot of space in 16-a-side. She’ll be an exciting one to watch.