Arnell came to Port Adelaide with a rich personal history – as Carlton’s inaugural AFLW captain and being a member of the AFL Players’ Association Advisory Board which helped shape the women’s competition before it began.
It was August 2021, Port Adelaide was announced as the final expansion team in the AFLW, and the club needed to move fast to be ready for the 2022/23 season.
It needed a department head; a head coach; an operations manager; list manager; team manager; assistant, conditioning and development coaches; players; a leadership group; a captain; and of course, a culture that reflected Port Adelaide’s triumphant ways.
Little wonder Lauren Arnell uses the term ‘head spinning’ a lot when reflecting on those early months.
Her people-first, high-performance approach to coaching was invaluable in identifying, recruiting and developing an AFLW squad from its roots.
Several years into her tenure, Arnell talks about the challenge in holding the line where her two sometimes conflicting philosophies bang heads.
Critiquing, challenging and selecting her players in a high-performance environment can feel in opposition to her innate inclination for nourishment, praise and support.
Despite this personal question, Lauren Arnell takes with her to work every day an appreciation of the ‘privilege’ it is to coach at the Port Adelaide Football Club.
The feeling is mutual. Port Adelaide’s Head of AFLW Shane Grimm says of the club’s inaugural coach: “Lauren is a passionate and outstanding leader who invests significant time and energy into our playing group and the wider AFLW program.
“Her deep understanding of the game and women’s sport, combined with her ability to connect genuinely with people, makes her an exceptional coach …”
Given the coach’s quality it is perhaps unsurprising that in just the club’s third season – in 2024 – the team went on an historic eight-game winning streak and a maiden finals campaign, losing to eventual premier North Melbourne in the preliminary final.
It was a massive unfolding of talent, confidence, cohesion and know-how. A coach’s role in that unfoldment can never be underestimated.
Arnell came to Port Adelaide with a rich personal history – as Carlton’s inaugural AFLW captain and being a member of the AFL Players’ Association Advisory Board which helped shape the women’s competition before it began.
In a major influence, Arnell also developed the ‘She Can Coach’ program to support women in the industry.
And in another ground-breaking involvement, Lauren Arnell became the first former player to be appointed senior coach of an AFLW team.
She stepped down from the role at the end of the 2025 season.
