How to Prepare for Lisa Fiola & Tasha Gale — The Brutal NRLW Pathway Guide No One Else Will Give You
- EXCEL Sports Management
- Mar 3
- 12 min read
Preparing for the Lisa Fiola Cup and the Tasha Gale Cup is not a “natural next step” from grassroots. It’s not something you stumble into because you scored a few tries in local league or made a rep side at 15s.
It is a completely different standard of athlete, mindset, and preparation.
Most parents and players have no idea how big the jump really is. I’ve seen it for years:
Girls dominating local comps,
Parents celebrating like the job’s already done,
Players distracted by hype, followers, and TikTok dances…
…and then when they hit Lisa Fiola or Tasha Gale level, they’re exposed, unfit,
slow, mentally fragile, and gone within a year.
This guide is the brutal truth on how to prepare for Lisa Fiola & Tasha Gale properly — not the sugar-coated version.
How to Prepare for Lisa Fiola & Tasha Gale — The Reality No One Tells Parents
Here’s what no one tells you:
At 16–17 for Lisa Fiola and 17–18 for Tasha Gale, there’s a lot of excitement. People think they’re ready because they’ve scored three or four tries a game in grassroots footy. I’ve watched so many of these players over the years:
They get picked for a development squad,
They get an invite to a trial,
They or their parents start posting like it’s a grand final win…
…and they think, “We’ve made it.”
You haven’t even taken a step yet.
Years ago, Lisa Fiola and Tasha Gale were easier to crack. Pathways weren’t as structured, standards weren’t as high, and the NRLW wasn’t heading toward full-time professionalism like it is now. Some of it was honestly a circus.
But today?
You are being treated as a development prospect. That means:
Your mindset has to be ready,
Your body has to be ready,
Your habits have to be ready,
Your family has to be ready.
Parents need to understand this:
Don’t make the mistake of celebrating selection like it’s the finish line. Making a squad, a trial, or a dev list is not “making it”. It’s the invitation to start the real work.
From what I’ve seen, 80% of players could get to the NRLW level if they understood:
how to prepare properly,
how to build the right mindset,
how parents should behave,
how to knuckle down and do the hard yards with patience.
But right now?
Maybe 10% are truly hungry.
The rest are show ponies.
I’ve seen it over and over:
players put on weight,
they get slower,
they spend more time hyping themselves, posting, doing dances, chasing attention —while the real ones are out there training when no one is watching.
The girls who make it are the ones who:
have a preseason before the preseason,
do extras that no one knows about,
walk into day one already ahead of everyone else.
How to Prepare for Lisa Fiola & Tasha Gale the Right Way — What Coaches Actually Look For
Stop telling coaches what you do.
They don’t care what you say. They care what they can see.
You can say:
“I do three sprint sessions a week.”
“I do two gym sessions.”
That means nothing compared to what your body and your performance show.
Coaches and selectors look at:
Your body definition
Your speed and acceleration
Your contact confidence
The way you carry the ball
Your tackle technique
Your effort areas and repeat efforts
How you handle fatigue and mistakes
Your attitude when things go wrong
Your body language after errors
Whether you’re actually coachable
They’re not looking for someone who talks the best or posts the most.
They’re looking for someone who:
works hard,
listens,
never makes excuses,
keeps turning up,
and competes.
The best players:
Don’t gossip.
Don’t compare themselves.
Don’t talk shit about teammates.
They compete and respect the team.
Culture is everything.
If you’re not coachable, if you bring drama, if it’s all about you — your talent won’t save you in Lisa Fiola or Tasha Gale.
The Five Preparation Pillars You MUST Master to Be Ready
To be truly ready for Lisa Fiola and Tasha Gale, you need to nail five pillars:
Physical conditioning
Technical skills
Mental toughness
Lifestyle habits
Character
Let’s break them down.
Physical Conditioning — How Your Body Must Be Built for Lisa Fiola & Tasha Gale
Clubs don’t want ego lifters and bodybuilders.
They want athletes.
Physical conditioning for pathways is not about:
How much you can bench
How big your arms are
How “jacked” you look in photos
It’s about:
Repetition
Durability
Breathing
Movement quality
Handling impact and volume without breaking down
When you’re in the gym, the focus is:
technique over weight,
breathing over ego,
smooth reps over shaking and struggling.
Example — bench press approach:
Start with the bar only, 15 reps. Focus on breathing and perfect technique.
Then add 5kg each side (around 30kg total) for 10 reps. No shakes.
If that’s smooth, add 2.5kg each side and stay at 10 reps.
If at any point you’re shaking or struggling, the weight is too heavy. Drop it back.
Same principle applies for:
incline bench,
dumbbell flies,
decline,
all major lifts.
You build a body that can handle contact, load and repeat efforts, not just look good in photos.
Technical Skills — Fixing Your Weaknesses Before the Pathway Exposes Them
If you’re weak somewhere technically, you don’t hide from it — you fix it.
That means:
asking questions,
doing extras,
staying after training,
building the correct habits.
You work on:
tackle technique and body position,
safe and strong contact,
catch/pass under pressure,
running lines,
decision-making when tired,
defensive reads,
pushing in support.
By the time you hit Lisa Fiola, the basics must be automatic.
By Tasha Gale, you’re not just doing the basics — you’re polishing them and adding game smarts.
Mental Toughness — Learning to Love What You Hate
This is where most drop off.
Mental toughness is not shouting “I’m tough.
”It’s your relationship with:
conditioning,
fatigue,
the sessions you dread,
the physical and mental pain of repetition.
You have to learn to love the pain of everything you hate — especially the fitness.
If you can fall in love with the hard stuff, everything else becomes easier:
selections
games
pressure moments
setbacks
Lifestyle Habits — Living Like a Pathway Athlete
You can’t say you want Lisa Fiola or Tasha Gale while living off:
Big Macs,
KFC,
takeaway and soft drink.
Fuel matters.
You need:
good nutrition,
regular meals,
hydration,
enough sleep,
less late-night scrolling,
more recovery.
Lifestyle is the silent advantage.
Character — Who You Are On and Off the Field
Off the field:
Be humble.
Be respectful.
Enjoy being 15, 16, 17 — don’t act like a superstar.
On the field:
You don’t need to be humble.
You need to be hungry, aggressive, fearless.
Trust yourself.
If you’ve done the work, unleash it.
Then when the game or training finishes, you switch back:
family,
friends,
gratitude,
balance.
That’s how you grow as a player and a person.
Age-by-Age Breakdown — When You Really Need to Start Preparing
Ages 11–13 — Foundation Years
This is all about building foundations, not pressure.
Best sports:
Touch football
League tag
Soccer
Why?
They build:
speed,
agility,
footwork,
fitness,
spatial awareness,
ball instincts.
If you’re playing rugby league as well, great. But keep something fast-paced and skill-based in there — touch and soccer are gold.
Ages 14–15 — The Real Preparation Window
This is where serious preparation for Lisa Fiola begins.
At 14–15 you should:
keep playing touch/soccer for feet and fitness,
build more rugby league contact confidence,
learn to live with a ball in your hands — like a soccer player with a ball at their feet,
start structured speed and agility training,
develop consistent conditioning sessions,
understand basic tackle and contact technique,
build early professional habits.
The goal from this age?
Hit 15s development squads,
which line you up for 16s and then Lisa Fiola.
Ages 16–17 — Lisa Fiola Standards
By 16–17, to be ready for Lisa Fiola, you must already:
have the basics perfected,
be confident in contact,
be able to handle fatigue,
show leadership and maturity,
work hard in every effort area,
have clean passing, tackling, and game awareness.
Trials are not where you learn this — they’re where you show what you’ve built
over the last 2–3 years.
Ages 17–19 — Tasha Gale & NRLW Pathway Polishing
Tasha Gale is where:
all the 1%ers get judged:
your positioning,
your talk,
your repeat efforts,
your resilience,
your consistency.
By Tasha Gale age, you’re transitioning from “junior rep” to real athlete.
This is where:
your mental resilience,
your emotional maturity,
your lifestyle,
and your patience
start determining whether you can actually go all the way to NRLW.
What Australian Clubs Really Look For (Beyond Talent)
It’s not always just the head coach picking teams.
You’ve got:
coaches,
assistant coaches,
development staff,
sometimes even managers or admin giving opinions.
That alone can be a problem — but it’s the reality.
The good ones, though, look for:
speed and agility,
conditioning and toughness,
skill under fatigue,
personality,
coachability,
hunger,
and moral character.
I often compare it to boxing:
You might see a big, muscly athlete with thousands of followers, looking scary.
Then there’s a skinnier, quieter athlete who has spent two years in the ring, working hard with no hype.
Nine times out of ten?
The experienced, disciplined one wins.
If your mindset is just “I want to play NRLW”, you’re aiming too low.
Think bigger:
“I want to represent my country — Kiwi Ferns, Australia, Samoa, Tonga.”
When you think that big, NRLW becomes just a box you tick on the way there.
The New Zealand to Australia Route — The Truth No One Says Out Loud
New Zealand is a massively untapped area. There is raw talent everywhere.
A lot of people now talk about “NZ scouting”.
The truth is:
Excel Sports started bringing NZ girls over in bulk the right way.
We built the model, we learned the mistakes, and we saw who succeeded and who didn’t.
And I’ll tell you this clearly:
Most NZ girls should not relocate early just to play Lisa Fiola.
Why?
Because relocation involves:
being underage in another country,
at least one parent needing to come,
sometimes both parents,
the risk of homesickness,
boarding costs (around $300 a week for a room),
food (another $100 or so a week),
transport to and from training,
getting to and from games,
parents flying in and out to watch,
restrictions around work and income.
That’s a huge financial and emotional burden.
Only exceptional athletes should make that move early.
One example is Asha Taumoepeau-Williams:
She needed to be here as a bottom-age Lisa Fiola player,
she dominated as a top-age Lisa Fiola player,
and by Tasha Gale, she was already locked in.
The timing, the family support, and the pathway were done properly.
For most NZ players?
You’re better off:
building yourself in NZ,
focusing on fitness, speed, agility,
and looking at coming over around Tasha Gale age if needed.
NZ athletes have:
great bone density,
natural strength,
toughness…
But the weaknesses are usually:
fitness,
speed,
agility.
NZ doesn’t need more technical coaches — it needs more speed and conditioning coaches.
The NZ Warriors NRLW system with people like Ronald Griffiths and Nadine Conlon are trying to build something special — Georgia Hale Cup and domestic pathways. If those systems mature properly, NZ girls will have strong home pathways before needing to look overseas.
Red Flags That Can Kill Your Lisa Fiola & Tasha Gale Journey Before It Starts
Let’s talk about the ugly stuff.
One of the biggest red flags I see is division — especially between Australian and NZ girls.
The NZ girls arrive already bonded.
The Australian girls feel behind physically.
So they start forming their own group.
Now you’ve got:
us vs them,
little cliques,
quiet jealousy,
subtle digs,
fake support.
A lot of this comes from home:
parents talking,
school friends hyping,
people saying, “We’ll help each other stand out.”
The problem?
There is no such thing as “us vs them” in a high-performance team.
It must be one team, one culture.
What’s worse is when clubs see it and don’t do anything. They hope it “sorts itself out”. It doesn’t.
Real leaders — players and staff — should:
stamp it out,
pull girls together,
suggest team-bonding,
call out division,
lead with humility and decency.
That includes standing up to parents’ behaviour.
The kind of talk like:
“That player is shit, my daughter’s going to smash her.”
“Our daughters will kill it, they’re better than everyone.”
That behaviour is disgusting.
It’s not what builds careers — it’s what destroys them.
The best way for your daughter to stand out?
Stop posting.
Stop hyping.
Let other people talk about her.Let her football be the loudest thing in the room.
Build good habits, not toxic behaviours.
The 6-Month Preparation Plan — Exactly How to Train Before Preseason Even Starts
This is the Excel Sports blueprint: a preseason before the preseason.
1. The 15-Minute Conditioning Method (Breath & Endurance)
Most people run by distance. I prefer time.
Here’s the session:
Set a 15-minute timer.
Jog at a very easy pace.
Every 2 minutes, pick up the pace for 30 seconds (not a sprint, just enough to lift your heart rate).
Then go back to easy pace and focus on:
breathing in through your nose,
out through your mouth.
Do this for the full 15 minutes — then turn around and repeat it back for another 15.
You do this:
twice a week at the start,
focus on breathing and endurance,
not speed.
It trains:
heart rate control,
mental rhythm,
endurance under controlled stress.
2. Strength Training — Repetition Over Ego
In the gym:
Don’t chase 1RM ego lifts,
Don’t shake through sets,
Don’t sacrifice technique to impress anyone.
Instead:
Use light to moderate weights,
Train high-quality reps,
Focus on breathing and form,
Progress slowly and safely.
Structure something like:
flat bench → incline → dumbbell flies → decline,
all with the same repetition-first mindset.
3. Three Months Out — Sprint / Speed / Conditioning
Now we add more football-based conditioning.
A simple but brutal field drill:
Sprint to the 20m line, jog back.
Sprint to the 40m line, jog back.
Repeat for 4 sets.
This builds:
aerobic and anaerobic capacity,
sprint ability under fatigue,
mental resilience.
4. Two Months Out — 10/20/30/40 Drill
Now we get specific.
Sprint to 10m → jog back.
Sprint to 20m → jog back.
Sprint to 30m → jog back.
Sprint to 40m → jog back.
Then reverse:
Sprint 40 → jog back,
Sprint 30 → jog back,
Sprint 20 → jog back,
Sprint 10 → jog back.
That’s one set.
The goal:
3 sets,
3 times per week,
focusing on breathing and control, not racing the jog back.
This directly improves:
Broncos,
repeat efforts,
game conditioning.
5. Agility & Explosive Starts — 3 Months Out
You also add:
lateral cone drills,
change of direction,
reactive footwork,
explosive 5–10m starts.
You want:
speed,
agility,
explosiveness,
confidence in your first step.
All of this means that when you finally arrive at preseason:
fitness is sorted,
Bronco isn’t a problem,
conditioning doesn’t break you,
you’re not trying to “survive” — you’re ready to compete.
Final Message — The Mindset That Holds Everything Together
This moment right now — reading this, thinking about your daughter’s pathway,
thinking about your own habits if you’re the athlete — is the most important part of the whole journey.
The secret to success in NRLW pathways is simple:
Have a preseason before the preseason.
If you listen to NRL players toward the end of their preseason, you’ll often hear:
“We can’t wait to rip in.”
Do you know what they’re really saying?
They’re saying:
The games are the reward.
The preseason is the sacrifice.
You earn your confidence months before Round 1.
You shouldn’t be stepping into a game nervous about failing.Nervous with excitement is fine.Nervous because you know you didn’t prepare — that’s a problem.
Preparation gives you trust:
trust in your body,
trust in your lungs,
trust in your legs,
trust in your habits.
If you make a mistake — that’s football.
You dive on the ball, you kill the error, and you move on:
“Pack a scrum, boys/girls, let’s go.”
No meltdown. No drama. Next job.
The most important thing is:
Get excited to show the hard work you’ve put in.
Get excited to empty the tank for your team.
Get excited to be the one who never stops.
Always remember:
It’s not just your coach watching.
There are other coaches, other scouts, other recruiters always looking.
And once your job is done?
Enjoy being your age.
Enjoy what you’ve earned.
Enjoy the journey, not just the destination.
When you see your own family overreacting or getting caught in hype, be the leader and say:
“Mum, Dad, we don’t need this.
I’ll earn whatever people say about me.
Let my football speak.”
At Excel Sports, we don’t look for:
try-scorers only,
or dancers,
or hype machines.
We look for players who want a career — players who want to build something long-term.
Our core values:
Family • Faith • You
That is the secret weapon behind everything we do.
Your attitude is the most important part of your journey.Get that right, and the rest becomes so much easier.
And never forget:
Learn to love what you hate —because the pain of fitness is what builds champions.
“THE MOMENT YOU DECIDE YOUR NRLW FUTURE”
“If your daughter is serious about her NRLW journey, contact Excel Sports Management.”
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