Big dreams: Vic Metro youth girls Isabel Huntington, 17; Jordyn Allen, 15; Katherine Smith, 17; and Deanna Berry, 17. Photo: Wayne Taylor

Like thousands of other talented teenagers, 17-year-old Deanna Berry really, really wants to get drafted.

The Whittlesea secondary college student played cricket and did waterski racing, but when the AFL announced it would start a national women's league in 2017, she gave them up to focus on football. She is injury-prone and like generations of boys before her, the chance to play Victoria's favourite sport was too good to pass up.

"If I was a boy I could potentially be getting drafted next year and now I'm a girl and I could be getting drafted next year," she said.

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"This is serious now."

While some traditionally female sports including softball and calisthenics have seen a significant drop in participants, the AFL reports girls are flocking to football.

Talented boys are regularly encouraged to choose a sport to focus on in their early teenage years, in order to give themselves the greatest chance for success and the AFL's future female champions are making similar choices.

Just weeks ago Cricket Australia announced it was boosting its women's pay – from a $45,000 base rate for the Southern Stars to $65,000, plus more for playing in the national Big Bash or domestic competitions.  It will mean the country's best female cricketers will stand to earn a little more than $100,000 a year, much less than their male counterparts but a healthy wage nonetheless, especially in the world of women's sport.

The Stars have found significant success in recent years and fought hard for their pay rise, but the peak body's move has also been interpreted as a grab for female talent before the AFL women's competition launches in 2017.  In Cricket Australia's announcement of the pay rise, they reiterated their aim of making it the sport of choice for Australian women.

Meanwhile all but three AFL clubs are expected to enter a bid for a women's team, with four of eight sides likely to be placed at Victorian clubs.  Collingwood, Carlton and North Melbourne are among those making aggressive pushes for their own sides.

Natasha Norton, secretary of the Australian Womensport and Recreation Association, said Cricket Australia had set a precedent for how to pay sportswomen.

She encouraged multi-talented girls to pursue whatever sport they were most passionate about, but said when they had equal enjoyment for multiple codes, they may choose a sport where they were paid better or were offered more opportunities.

Norton said she hoped the fight for top talent would improve remuneration for sportswomen.

"[Cricket Australia's announcement] is good healthy competition for other codes," she said.  

AFL Victoria female development manager Chyloe Kurdas has been working with teenage girl footballers for a decade and said she had seen an influx of talented youngsters since the national competition was announced.  A number of young women had switched sports, driven by the chance to pull on an AFL guernsey in a real national league.

"Where footy might have been fourth or fifth on their list, it now might be second or third," she said.

"They're sort of going, I might just see where this goes, I've got room for a second sport in my life."

Kurdas said the girls, like boys, were feeling a sense of pressure about making it to the AFL, but as young women in a traditionally male sport they were also being held up as role models for their communities.  Her program was trying to equip them with the emotional intelligence and life skills to cope.

The girls were keenly watching out for every announcement about the women's league, Kurdas said.

"They're all sort of salivating at the opportunity that's in front of them," she said.

"I've never seen so much talent come into the program, so much existing talent work as hard as they currently are and the kids are really buying in and committing."

Kurdas said the coaches had taken the program up a notch in terms of structure and strategy.  They were challenging the girls more than ever before.

"Every kid that comes in is expected to rise and come with us," she said.

"If a girl is struggling or it's taking her more time to adapt because she's new to the sport, the coaches are spending extra time and investing to help fast-track her and catch her up."

Berry started out in AFL because her three older brothers played and her mother was secretary at their local club, so she spent a lot of time kicking a football around.

She is now part of the leadership group at Vic Metro Representative Squad, an elite group of players aged 13-17 who train at Richmond's headquarters on Punt Road.  Berry played with the boys until she reached the under-14s and has since found camaraderie among other girls and women in the sport.

 "It's just amazing interacting with girls who also love the sport that was a male-dominated sport, but have kind of taken over in a way and prove that females can play the sport and we can be just as strong and tough and physical as the boys are," she said.

The Vic Metro team trains together each Wednesday night, but all the players also work with their local youth girls academies and many play for junior and women's team too.

Utility Katherine Smith, 17, plays for Blackburn junior football club, the Eastern Devils women's team and captains Vic Metro.  She first got involved in football running around after her older brother at Auskick and her father started a girls' team at Blackburn so local girls could keep playing as they got older.

"I love the physicality, how you have to be really fit, how you have to be really skilful," she said.

Smith played basketball for eight years, but decided to give it away last year to concentrate on school and her AFL.

"Football's always been my passion, been my No.1 sport, so it was an easy decision to pick one of them to be honest," she said.

Playing AFL was a dream for Smith, but not one she ever really thought would become a reality.  If she gets the chance to pull on a guernsey and run out onto the MCG she may be "the happiest person ever".

"It's 100 per cent changed the way I've been training, I've just been pushing and pushing and wanting to better myself, so hopefully one day I can get there."

Berry, too, is working hard in pursuit of an AFL career.

"I feel like it's going to be the best opportunity for me as a person, as I've been growing up with the sport," she said.

"I do put pressure on myself to be someone who I think I can be."