The Northern Territory is leading the charge in female participation in the AFL, attracting first-time and professional players from across the country. And with the end of the professional season, the Territory's women premier league has been cashing in on talent.
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00:00Anna Bowie has never played Aussie Rules footy before.
00:05In my hometown there's no girls footy team so yeah it was never really something that
00:10ever crossed my mind.
00:11But that changed when Anna moved to Darwin last year.
00:15I think you always hear that everyone plays girls footy up here and I thought yeah why
00:19not let's give it a go.
00:21Anna grew up playing netball and tennis and has always been passionate about AFL.
00:26After supporting her brother who plays for local clubs in Delaney Quinn, for a player
00:32new to the game she says the support she's been given since joining the sport has been
00:37immense.
00:38I think everyone's been so welcoming and so lovely and I think it's really exciting playing
00:43a new sport and seeing yourself get better each week when you've not played before.
00:49But she's not the only one.
00:51Some using it as a spanky during the professional off-season while others are trying to score
00:56their first goal.
00:57Everyone's in the same boat, everyone's learning, everyone makes mistakes, has a laugh about it.
01:02In the last four years 41 female teams and 291 participants have joined the football
01:08league in the top end.
01:10The last two to three years we've seen such a massive growth at the footy club both in
01:14the women's and men's space.
01:16The timing of the Tetris competition from October to March and our humid weather is
01:21helping attract interstate talent from down south.
01:25But that's nothing new.
01:26It's a play that has long fuelled the men's league and it's having the same effect on
01:31the women's game.
01:32We've seen a huge boost in the numbers of the juniors coming through.
01:36We're working on having an under 18s team hopefully next year or the year after which
01:40is really exciting because that's something we haven't had previously.
01:43There's a really good kind of word of mouth and community around women's footy in the
01:48territory now and a lot of women join because of that social interaction.
01:53The growth of the women's game, making it clear regional communities are becoming a
01:58key player in the national sporting scene.