Sport
18 March, 2025
New heights for Lions
THE Moreton Bay Lions Women’s Division 1 team has been upgraded into the QAFLW, which is the highest state representative competition.
This will allow girls to stay and develop at the Moreton Bay Lions and not have to move clubs unless they get drafted into the AFLW league.
With the Moreton Bay Lions and Morningside joining the competition this year, it will create a broader player pool for AFLW clubs to select from when drafting potential talent.
Lions coach, Shane Dawes, said it was a huge achievement for the club to earn this licence into the QAFLW.
“It’s great, I guess it’s an advertisement of what we’ve been trying to build over the last few years,” he said.
“It’s a big deal that we are coming in and obviously the outside expectations are probably that we are going to battle.
“I think it’s different with this competition because we’ve had some sustained success in Moreton Bay in the division below.
“We have been in multiple grand finals in Division 1 in the last few years.”
Shane added their debut game next month is against Morningside, who they’ve already established a friendly rivalry with in Division 1.
“We were better than them last year, we beat them in the grand final in 2023 and we knocked them out of the finals in 2022,” he said.
“We’ve had this massive rivalry with them, but off the field we actually get on very well.
“Our goal for this season is to be well positioned for 2026, what that will look like for me is that we are playing and training to a QAFLW standard,” he said.
“It’s kind of ironic that in our first game we are playing each other, so the rivalry’s in the QAFLW now.”
Shane said it won’t be until they play the other QAFLW teams that they’ll see where the Lions stand in the competition.
He added if they can win at least half of their games, it would secure them a spot in the finals, surprising the opposition teams.
“Our goal for this season is if everyone on our list is improving by 10 per cent, and if the list is better at the end of the year, then the scoreboard will look after itself and so will the results.”
The Lions’ debut match is on Saturday, April 5 at 4pm, at Red Rooster Park in Burpengary.
