The 2024 Coates Talent League season is slowly fading in the rearview mirror and the Murray Bushrangers are already driving their 2025 aspirations forward.
Summer is fast approaching and so is pre-season training, with not long until the region’s best young footballers are once again strapping their ankles and kicking the pigskin.
In a sign of the shift in attention to next season, the Bushrangers announced their girls’ 2024-25 pre-season squad.
The initial squad is made up of 97 under-18 girls from the Bushrangers' catchment zone.
Of the 97 invitees, 22 are from clubs within the Goulburn Murray region.
Last season, the Bushrangers girls’ side finished bottom of the ladder with one win from 14 matches.
The side’s victory came in the final round of the home and away season, when the Bushrangers defeated Bendigo Pioneers by 17 points.
Twenty-one out of the 23 Bushrangers players from the drought-breaking round 17 victory are part of this summer's initial squad.
This demonstrates how young and inexperienced the Bushies’ line-up was in 2024, but also points to the potential growth in talent and output from the side next year.
Last season’s star and captain Holly Egan will have to wait until December 16 to see if her name gets called out at the AFLW Draft.
Bushrangers girls’ coach and former AFLW player Emma Mackie has stepped away from her duties with the development club for next season.
Bushrangers’ district squad players 2024-25
Ellie Armstrong (Shepparton United), Charlotte Artavilla Bennett (Barooga), Jerrah Caruso (Echuca United), Leila Creevey (Shepparton United), Lily Dunham (Echuca United), Zara Findlay (Shepparton United), Nakiyah Fraser (Barooga), Phoebe Guppy (Mansfield), Matilda Henderson (Shepparton United), Tabatha Ingham (Shepparton United), Zahra Kelly (Shepparton United), Jammisyn Lavis (Shepparton United), Mereani Lecanadau (Barooga), Tahlia Middleton (Mansfield), Jamie Nash (Alexandra), Claudia Plattfuss (Nathalia), Chloe Rorato (Barooga), Abbey Sheahan (Nathalia), Kiara Stephens (Barooga), Olivia Thompson (Nathalia), Ashanti Walker (Shepparton United) and Addison Wardle (Nathalia).