The 29-year-old will be part of Carlton's first women's team when the inaugural national league kicks off early next year.

It is an opportunity many women who love the sport would have craved and Arnell is well aware that her timing is good.

"I do meet a lot of women who are more my Mum's age who say I'm so jealous of you, but good on you," Arnell said. "[They say] 'I wish I was your age, or even younger'."

When the AFL first announced they would launch a national women's league by 2020, Arnell feared she too would miss out on playing in the AFL.

But the date was brought forward and Arnell said she was at peace with it not coming sooner.

She could go into the AFL with maturity and confidence built through having already had a

career.

Arnell is a triplet and grew up on a beef cattle farm just outside of Sunbury.

She was sports mad as a child, a keen Western Bulldogs fan who would spend every lunchtime at school kicking the football with the boys.

Arnell said she was happily unaware of being different.

"Even now as an adult, people say 'you always just do what you want to do'," she said.

"I like to think I'm conscious of what other people around me are doing, but I think once I make my mind up that something suits me that I'd like to do it I just go for it."

She remembers her one and only competitive football match as a child, a interschool tournament in grade six where she played at half forward and kicked a couple of goals. "It was the best, I'll never forget it," she said.

"When I played with the boys at lunchtime, you'd do the Eddie Betts-type celebration, but being able to do that in a game was pretty awesome."

But secondary school, with its very different social mores, came as a shock for Arnell.

It was no longer considered acceptable that she spend all of lunchtime playing sport – instead, the girls sat down and talked to each other.

She got along with everybody but was not good at small talk.

"I probably had to learn to socialise when I went to high school, which is quite weird," she said.

Arnell played competitive basketball through her secondary school years, but it was not until she moved to Ballarat for university that she realised women played football at all.

She spent her first season at North Ballarat, then went on to win eight VWFL premierships with Darebin Falcons, represent Victoria six times and is a three-time all Australian.

Carlton was granted permission from the AFL to pre-sign Arnell as a priority selection due to her existing relationship with the club – she is their women's ambassador.

A trained PE teacher, Arnell also began working at AFL Victoria as their education and training manager, where she runs AFL Active, a fitness program aimed at women.

She oversees close to 100 casual game development officers and is working on getting more female VFL players involved.

Arnell hoped the women's league would make it easier for girls to stay in sport and to break down barriers.

"It's also allowed adult women to come back to a sport and a competitive environment and a healthy environment," she said.