Rookie certainly being the operative word.

The club that has been the State League benchmark that includes four flags in the past five seasons will enter the women's competition eyeing off the bigger picture already.

"We're there to simply create a pathway to the AFLW," inaugural Northern Bombers coach Dean Smith said.

"Other clubs have been recruiting 30 to 34-year-olds that are never going to get drafted now. You've got to have a couple of them, but there is no point of having half mature-aged players.

"The whole idea of this competition is about getting players drafted. We put that before anything really. That's what we have told the girls."

The same club that gave starts to Richmond premiership ruckman Toby Nankervis, last year's top-10 draft pick Tarryn Thomas and supplementary selection Jay Lockhart already has four girls linked into the North Melbourne AFLW academy before playing a TSLW game.

The additional challenge for North Launceston is adapting to the top level in the state without first playing in the burgeoning NTFAW.

Smith instead scouted the NTFAW and targeted clubs in the Bombers' zone.

"It's definitely a challenge, but we're up for it," he said.

"We've had a big chat about that and said we're statewide club. We don't want to be confusing things by having a team in the NTFAW.

"When we wanted to go, we wanted to jump straight in. We've done our homework."

The club contacted close to 50 girls before whittling that number down to 28 players.

Smith is keen to also draw top-up players from the regional under-17 league.

To build a new team, the buy-in was tough at first.

"Once they had started to come on board and found out the commitment, a few of them initially baulked at it. We have no great expectations, but we're also putting no ceiling on it," he said.

The TSLW opens its season proper with a gala day at UTAS Stadium on Sunday.

North plays as the away side against Lauderdale - and that suits Smith just fine.

"We get to play the other new team, then we sit down and watch the other four teams play too," he said. "It'll give us a good understanding of what we're up against."

Maggie Cuthbertson has a second TSLW crack after the 2017 Blues premiership prior to going home to Evandale.

Ebony Barrenger also has crossed from Launceston after being sidelined last year.

"I'm really excited about the next few years," Smith said. "By the third year, we're going to be looking really good. We have some good talent coming through."

Rather than resisting the change, new Launceston coach Angela Dickson has praised the Bombers' arrival.

"It's just fantastic to have North Launceston come into it to create that extra avenue for players that wanted to play TSLW, but we couldn't fit everybody in," she said.

"It creates that that drive through the regional league to pursue their footy careers and push themselves to play at State League. It has created a traditional rivalry that has been there with the men.

"We're looking forward to playing them and hopefully over the years it will be the game of the season."

Dickson took on the reins from Alex Gibbins in the offseason. The premiership coach groomed his protege over the course of last year.

But the playing coach, who brought in Ross Clark as assistant, will lean on the experiences of Daria Bannister, Courtney Webb and Burnie recruits Chloe and Libby Haines learned in the AFLW.

"I don't see my role as head coach as the be all, end all," she said. "I'd like to be very collaborative with my players and those around me, so it's a joint effort."

Bannister out of all of last season with an ACL knee injury and Webb unavailable over cricket commitments curtailed their influence on defending the TSLW title.

Dickson is confident the side can bounce back from a dispiriting third for Sunday's opener against Glenorchy.

"We've got one of the strongest teams we've ever had. You never look too far into the future because we think of last year, and we just thought we had a pretty strong team and could have gone all the way," she said.

"We ended up with two major injuries in the first game last year and that pretty much hit us for the season.

"We're hopeful that we have the team this year that could go all the way again."

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