Milestone For Premier Girls

Presented by WARD

As Australian Cricket celebrates Women and Girls’ Week this week, the spotlight has turned to Queensland’s successful implementation of its flagship women’s youth program.

For the first time, all 12 clubs in the KFC Queensland Premier Cricket competition have teams playing in the 2025-26 competition, with players drawn from all over the State.

The Taverners Queensland Girls competition is an Under 16  premier youth cricket competition run by Queensland Cricket for players transitioning from community cricket to senior grade. 

Played in both T20 and one-day formats, the competition is an important pathway for developing players in Queensland. 

The teams play for the Paul Pink Shield and this season, have been split into two pools of six.

There have been three rounds of games completed, with the remainder of the competition to be held during the summer holidays in December and January.

Performances in the competition will help Queensland Cricket select its squad for the National Under-16 championships in Launceston in January next year.

Regional players are also benefitting from the competition, with North Queensland and South Queensland players joining in the action.

 Northern Queensland
•    Caitlyn Jones – Townsville (CNQ) – playing for Valleys
•    Meah Hodge – Townsville playing for Toombul
•    Indiana Palmer – Cairns playing for Gold Coast
•    Eva Parfitt – Rockhampton playing for University of Qld 

Southern Queensland:
•    Murraya Buckley – Wide Bay playing for Sunshine Coast
•    Jessica Johnston – DDSWQ playing for Wynnum
•    Jasmine Comerford - Wide Bay playing for Sunshine Coast
•    Leah Henley – SEQ playing for Gold Coast
•    Addyson Ward – SEQ playing for Gold Coast

The competition is also proving important opportunities for coaching development, with several current players in the Katherine Raymont Shield and Jodie Purves Shield taking on the coaching roles with the teams.

Grace Abdy (Valley), Eloise Schabe (Wynnum-Manly), Amy Marshall (Toombul), Lauren Taylor (Redlands) and Mahi Mehta (South Brisbane) are among those mixing playing with coaching.

Former New Zealand allrounder Hayley Jensen is coaching Norths while premiership winning allrounder Melissa Lewis is back with Gold Coast.

2025-26 Taverners Qld U16 Girls 
Coaches
Valley – Grace Abdy 
Norths – Hayley Jensen 
Toombul – Amy Marshall 
UQ – Anthony Clarke 
Sunshine Coast – John Flew 
Wests – Darren Sonter
GC – Melissa Lewis
Redlands – Lauren Taylor
Souths – Mahi Mehta
Sandgate – Flynn Zahra 
Wynnum – Eloise Schabe
Ipswich - Melissa Dewar

Queensland Cricket's Women and Girls' Week is proudly supported by WARD, which back the Queensland Fire.