Luke Lawrence has signed with SANFL club North Adelaide for 2024

The Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes midfielder is the third young talent to sign with the Roosters for next year joining good mates Luke Fellows and Brad Ashcroft in making the move over to the South Australian National Football League (SANFL).

Lawrence said that he was looking forward to the move and testing himself at a higher standard of footy.

"Yeah it's pretty exciting," Lawrence said.

"I'm looking forward to it, it's obviously been good over at Mango the past couple of years but I think a new experience is something I've always looked forward to.

"Especially with the level of footy over there, it's pretty good to go over there and just experience that and be exposed to that higher level of state league footy I guess.

"I'm pretty excited and pretty rapt with it."

Lawrence played two games in the VFL for the Giants last year and he was hopeful that experience would assist him a bit in adjusting to the increase in standard.

"Yeah hopefully," he said.

"Obviously I was a bit younger last year playing VFL, so I'm a bit bigger now and not as scrawny as I used to be.

"I've put a lot more work in now so hopefully it can translate over there and having more experience with the bigger bodies in the RFL will obviously help a lot more over there as well.

"But the coaching and experience of VFL, you kind of know and expect what the speed of the game is going to be like over there and in that aspect I think it will help a lot."

MORE SPORTS NEWS:

Lawrence is making the move across to Adelaide alongside Fellows and Ashcroft and he revealed that going over as a group played a factor in his decision to make the move.

"Yeah it's unreal," he said.

"Luke put it on the radar last year to me and said how do you feel about going and we thought about going last year.

"I kind of said to just give me a year and see how it goes so we both committed to local footy down here for a year and I think that worked out a lot better for both of us.

"Obviously Luke had a stellar year and I was happy for him and how he played, the success that he and Brad had at Turvey it was unreal to watch two of your good mates go and succeed at a club they love.

"Then Brad I've worked with him this year and we've got along unreal and he's one of my best mates now.

"I think going over there you are a lot more comfortable with two mates that are good at footy and you are good mates with as well.

"So that will make it a much better experience than just going over by yourself and playing footy."

Lawrence departs the Goannas after spending the last four years at the club and he said that the season just gone was probably his most enjoyable to date.

"It was a lot different this year," he said.

"I wasn't juggling all these different teams and I was able to commit to just Mango for the second half of the year after I was just with Giants for the first four games of the year.

"But after that my main goal was to just try and get through the year unscathed and I think I did a lot better.

"Obviously we were a bit unsuccessful but it didn't feel like we were unsuccessful at the same time and it was the most enjoyable year of footy I've ever had I reckon.

"Just the culture at the club was there and people around, Nelse (Foley) coming in he did an unreal job of making sure everyone was involved.

"I got to play with a couple of mates and they brought younger guys through first grade so I think that experience of getting back to enjoying footy rather than focusing on the individual aspects was why I really enjoyed it this year.

"It was a good year."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: