About Youth Girls AFL

Forest Lions Girls Teams in 2025

AFL is a great sport offering a unique mix of athleticism and ball skills along with the social and team work aspects that make it so much fun. Girls of all skill levels can get involved with coaching staff able to accommodate a range of skills and abilities. Girls AFL continues to grow across Australia, across Greater Sydney and especially up our way in the Forest and Northern Beaches area, with more and more registrations across all the junior age groups. In the NSW/ACT AFL there are five female age divisions:

The 5 age groups for girls AFL across Sydney:

Under 9s     Under 11s     Under 13s     Under 15s     Under 17s 

Some interested girls have parents that are concerned by tackling or the time commitment. The tackling is easy to explain once the girls come down and experience it. The time commitment can be accommodated by recognising not all older girls will be able to get to every training, every week although that is very much the preference to help lift skills and build a sense of belonging and teamwork. Girls in the Forest aged between 8 to 17 have the opportunity to “get in on the Ground Floor”, at an exciting time in the development of Girls AFL in our region, with a clear pathway to a national competition.

The cost of girl’s registrations for 2025 is $220 per player. Details for the NSW Government’s Active Kids voucher, for each school-aged child (K-12) to the value of $100 to be used to subsidise sporting club registrations, is also on our website. Click HERE to register.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact registrar@.

Female Coach Mentoring & Recruitment

Sam Apps, one of our Female Coaches at Forest Lions is the Female Coach Mentoring and Recruitment volunteer and is part of an AFL/ BHP sponsored program. Forest Lions are one of only 5 clubs selected across NSW and ACT to participate in this program. The aspiration of AFL NSW/ACT is to drive 50:50 male/ female participation across all aspects of our game – playing, coaching, umpiring and administration – by 2030 which is pretty exciting.

Sam has been involved in the Forest Lions community for just over 11 years now – the first 6 years as an enthusiastic parent and, for the last 5, as an even more enthusiastic coach for our young Youth Girl teams!

Sam and the club need help and support in the following ways:

For all the mums and our older female players, please let Sam know if you’d like to have a chat about getting involved in coaching at the Club – this could be as simple as helping out at training occasionally, taking on runner duties at a few games, becoming a co-coach or a coach in your own right. Sam didn’t grow up playing footy, but when the club asked if she was interested in having a crack at coaching, she was fully supported, with the other coaches and our parents really getting around and helping.

If you would like more information please email Sam at fcmr@forestafl.com.au.

We are running a female coaching recruitment event at Lionel Watts pre-season on early 2025 at Lionel Watts Club House. This event was a huge hit last year so we’d really encourage you to come for a briefing and get the chance to ask any questions that you might have.

Forest AFL

Forest AFL offers a great environment for any school-age players, boys or girls, looking to play AFL, recently becoming a focal point for girls looking to play the code in our part of Sydney.

Facilities: Lionel Watts Reserve on Blackbutts Road in Frenchs Forest has been our home for over 40 years and has been transformed into an all-weather surface, by the Northern Beaches Council.

Training

Forest AFL has access to Lionel Watts Reserve for training every week of the season and for hosting our Home games, every second week.

Refer to the Training section for more information on days and times for training.

This approach will give a real female presence at the Club and highlight this to the wider community, while also offering more flexibility around training schedules/exercises tailored for girls, with a platform for transition and development through the pathway to playing senior football and even AFLW for those that want to realise their dreams.

Season Start

The 2025 Greater Sydney Junior AFL season starts in April, and concludes in late August/early September, with a few breaks throughout, for school holidays. More information will follow.

If you are interested in any more information on playing AFL with the Forest Lions in 2025, or want to speak to someone directly, please send an email to president@forestafl.com.au or registrar@forestafl.com.au.