Senior coach Lauren Arnell says her group has shown real maturity to bounce back from losses early in the season. 

Yartapuulti has enjoyed a five-game winning streak, showing important growth and improvement in its third season in the league. 

Arnell spoke to the Adelaide media on Friday about the group’s development, being in the frame for finals, and young defender Amelie Borg’s impressive form. 

Arnell on the group’s impressive back half of the season 
“I think, honestly, being an 11-game fixture, it really kind of depends on who you fixture early in the season. And you know, we have Round 1 Showdown against the Crows, which we absolutely love, and we know how successful they've been as a team. And that's our 21st game as a team. And now we're talking about our 31st game coming up this week. So there's a big difference between another 10 games with a young group. And in that middle part that you're referencing, where the ledger of wins and losses looks a bit different to what it does right now. We're playing North Melbourne and Richmond at the start of a congested fixture, and prior to that, Fremantle, who would just really getting up and going in Round 3. And so, a little bit of it is how much we have grown in each game, but some of it also is looking at who we're playing and what the fixture looks like, and every team's fixture looks a little bit different. There are teams in this comp that are sitting nicely at the moment, who banked early wins and have been able to maintain that momentum. And I think what I'm most pleased with this group is our fixture, certainly in the first period of the year, could have challenged us to a point where we dipped down, and instead we've gone upwards. And that's a real sign of maturity in our group.” 

Arnell on Sunday’s game against GWS 
“Yeah, we're excited. I think we played the Giants in the last fixtured round last year here at Alberton as well. So, yeah, certainly looking forward to going up against them on Sunday afternoon at Alberton. And think we've had really good crowd numbers here all year, and we're hoping to get a massive crowd out to support our girls on Sunday afternoon at 4:30.” 

Arnell on keeping players grounded ahead of finals 
“My messaging all year for every game has literally been like we only get 11 games fixture and so it's such a short time to bring a team together and find what the best version of the team is. And so the messaging, regardless of who we've played, whether it's been North Melbourne or Gold Coast up in Queensland, it's been around, how much better can we get each week? And so we've had some internal measures on that. And then we've also been able to go a little bit game-to-game and look at certainly last week and how we might improve off the back of that too. So I think the group's been amazing in really buying into that. And so I guess the privilege of knowing it’s very, very likely we'll play a final the week after, it's even more incentive to explore how much better we can get regardless of opponent this week.” 

Arnell on being in the finals conversation  
“I mean, it's honestly just such an exciting position to be in to have the opportunity to play finals for us, is incredible improvement off the back of the first two years coming into this competition. I think we've played 30 games as a group now in total. And so to see the improvement and the growth in the group, and particularly how much the younger players have added. And there's some middle core players that have been around since day one, who've been through many, many losses to get to this point. And so, we're honestly just excited that we've earned the opportunity to have these conversations about finals.” 

Arnell on the team’s success throughout the congested fixture period 
“I've spoken a bit about Anthony Gallomarino and our whole coaching group. I was on maternity leave in the early part of this year, and our entire coaching group, and Anthony coming in as a high performance coach, has been just incredible in preparing this group in an off-season where you don't necessarily earn your wins in a pre-season. They come in what's a long off-season in AFLW, and we challenged our group really heavily to put their heads down and work significantly harder than what they had in an off-season last year. And we've seen that, and that's starting to pay off now. I think every opportunity I can to praise, certainly the coaching group and players. I’ll take because they've been exceptional.” 

Arnell on Julia Teakle’s injury 
“Teaks is obviously a really important part of our forward line. And she's been really diligent in rehabbing that knee, but not quite ready for this weekend. So we're hopeful, assuming we do play week one of finals, which is looking incredibly likely, we're hopeful she'll be right.” 

Arnell on preparing players for the intensity of finals 
“I think it's taking every opportunity that you can. Certainly the Suns early in the game last week, all the measures of pressure factor and what the Suns have on paper in their midfield group is exceptional, and they threw the kitchen sink at us early. And so it's embracing those elements of games where you know the high pressure is going to be on, certainly from the start, and against finals teams, it'll be you have to expect four quarters of that. And so really pleased with what the Suns threw at us early, and we took some good learning out of that.” 

Arnell on measuring growth 
“I think a temptation would be to compare ourselves to others, but I think the nature of our group and how young we are, we have to compare ourselves to ourselves. Certainly the growth that we've had year on year, and particularly this year, really comes from a lot of things that were put in place nearly three years ago now. I think if I was to compare to other teams, everyone has different situations, certainly in this competition, with 16 a-side and 21 playing, 20-minute quarter, when you have key players injured, that can have a massive impact on your team in a short season. And we've seen that for a couple of teams. So I think obviously, Janelle Cuthbertson's injury early in the season was massive and has been huge for us, and Janelle has been incredible in leading the way off the field. But yeah, we'd compare our growth week on week.” 

Arnell on Amelie Borg 
“I think there's no doubt Amelie Borg is the most underrated defender in the whole competition. She's 19 years old, soon to be 20, and been on our list since day one. And you know, a lot of people talk about the talent on our list and how we've been able to benefit from different mechanisms in drafting and pre-signings with really highly talented players. But Borgy’s one who, I think she was one of our later picks in our very first draft, has been here since day one as a 17-year-old finishing school. And you look at the development of her on and off field, she's just been exceptional and always gets the best forward in the opposition. And I think she certainly should be in All-Australian conversations this year. And her work off field as well to help lead this group and just be genuinely good teammate and work her backside off every week really sets the tone for our group. And without Janelle out there, she's the leader.” 

Arnell on Indigenous Round 
“Jaz Stewart is just really family oriented person, and designed the jumper with Nan and Pop. You know her Nan's story is really special, and she's going to have her family here, including her Nan, over the weekend, so we're really excited to share that with her broader family from WA.  You would have seen their performance on the weekend against the Suns last week, in the way that the group was able to perform, and the pride they took in the jersey design that Jaz put together has been really special, and another opportunity to represent that in the right way this weekend.” 

Arnell on the Alberton crowd 
“Yeah, I think anyone who comes to our games, obviously, it's a really family oriented space here at Alberton. I've got family with a little niece who just loves running around the kids zone. But certainly, our players absolutely feed off the energy that our people provide, and whether that's hanging over the fence near the race or at The Precinct or on the other side at the kids zone. We feel every bit of the support, and I think it would be just so nice to hear a massive crowd get behind our group on Sunday afternoon.”