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 …

Stephanie De Bortoli
With her basketball background, Steph is very clever with her decision-making. She’s really powerful and is a nice long kick of the footy. We see her playing as a rebounding defender for us to really give us some drive off the backline. She’s starting to show us glimpses of what she can do at this level. Steph will continue to build up that consistency on the training track and getting ready for AFL level.

Meg Downie
Meg’s been excellent. She was one of our free agents and didn’t play footy last year. Meg’s a really good defender – she’s an intercept defender and reads the play really well. She also positions herself really well as a defender. Meg has been similar to Mia Clifford and showed us how good she is defensively at training. She’s a real competitor and is mentoring four young academy players, who are coming in on a Thursday night. Meg is overseeing that. She’s got definite leadership potential.

Laura Duryea
‘Irish’ has been brilliant. Her attack on the footy is second to none. She’s almost got to train with a bit more composure, because we know she can go hard and win the footy when she needs to, but we want to keep her calm and with a clear head under pressure. She’s excellent with her voice and as one of the older campaigners in the team ‘Irish’ definitely inspires and encourages the younger players to reach a higher level. We haven’t pinpointed a position for her, but she’s a potential defender, because she’s strong and competitive and can take some key talls. She’s also had some success on the wing and would have no problems smashing in the ruck. There are a lot of options with ‘Irish’ and she’s been very good so far.