Making the at-times frustrating sport fun again, the 18-year-old scored 613 runs and took 17 wickets across both Cricket North's and TCL's female competitions, taking out the best and fairest awards in both leagues.

"It was a different season for me, I sort of stepped back from everything state and anything that's not club level and really enjoyed my season," Norton-Smith said.

"Everything about it was a bit of fun really. Obviously you've still got to do the hard yards with training but at the end of the day, I just let all the pressure off me go and just tried to play good, fun cricket."

ELSEWHERE IN SPORT

The decision certainly paid off, co-captaining Launceston alongside Lynn Hendley to a grand-final loss before recovering with Longford, coaching them to a premiership.

Sharing such a strong bond with her premiership teammates, Norton-Smith is eager to continue her involvement with the Tigers but admits she is unsure what her cricketing future holds.

"I don't want to have to make the choice [between NTCA and TCL] because I'm very undecided within myself on what I actually want to do with my cricket.

"I don't want to step away from Longford no matter what I have to do in that way, whether I just coach or playing coach, I won't step away from them next season.

"What I do in NTCA next season, I'm not 100 per cent sure yet. That's just purely because of the rules that are in place from the TCL with NTCA players.

"Ideally I would like to see NTCA and TCL see eye-to-eye and acknowledge that women's cricket isn't as big as men's cricket and we need to help each other out a little bit with players going across both leagues but that's nothing to do with me."

Making the move from South Launceston to Launceston during the 2017-18 season, the former St Patrick's College student thanked her parents for the ongoing support and Knights coach Dean Hawkins for getting her involved in the sport.

"I was 11 years old and I used to play tennis when Dean had the sports store in the tennis centre next to NTCA.

"I got chatting to him and he said, 'do you want to play under-13 boys,' and I thought, as I was 11, that wasn't going to happen.

"I went to tennis training that week and he said that South Launceston were putting a women's team in and asked if I was interested. Mum and Dad weren't too keen with like 30-year-old women bowling at me [but they turned around]."

Subscriptions are available here.

Sign up to our Sport email here.