On the eve of season seven, I cannot believe we are here. All 18 teams playing in a professional AFLW competition, in addition to all players receiving a 94% pay rise. It honestly is hard to fathom, but it wasn’t always like this.

At school, I loved sport. Sport was a way to make friends, learn new skills, and stay healthy. When I was in year 11, our director of sport approached me asking if I wanted to give AFL a go. I didn’t really know much about AFL, but thought I’d give it a go. Ever since my first game, I haven’t looked back. The sport allowed me to do all the things I loved about the other sports I played – run, kick, catch. But there wasn’t much to aspire to – it wasn’t a professional sport at the time, and so I continued to play soccer. Until AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan announced there would be an official AFLW competition.

Playing at University, I still was a little unclear about what the path looked like for me. Not watching a lot of AFL, having grown up overseas, I didn’t know much about the sport still and wasn’t sure really how this was all going to work. I’d go to a Swans game every now and then and loved it. But then once the inaugural teams were announced, the Swans weren’t part of that and I was devastated.

Then one day, I received a call from the GIANTS while I was at University after a lecture. It was former GIANTS General Manager of Football Wayne Campbell, who was calling to say that the GIANTS were going to pick me up as their number one draft pick in the inaugural AFLW draft. My first thought was of pure excitement that I was going to be playing in the first ever AFLW competition! But then I thought, I really don’t know much about the GIANTS?

Having spent my high school in the northern suburbs of Sydney, I didn’t go out west much and didn’t really know anything about the GIANTS. Except for that one game I went to at GIANTS Stadium in Sydney Olympic Park.

Dave Matthews, CEO of the GIANTS, called me the next day, to ask if I wanted to have a coffee with him and then co-captain Phil Davis. I couldn’t believe that they wanted me to go along for a coffee with the captain of the men’s AFL team!

The family based, personal nature of the GIANTS is something that I’ve grown to love and respect so much. I’ve never felt so included in something before the GIANTS, and it probably took me a couple of years on the GIANTS’ AFLW list to really understand what a stretch it would have been for the GIANTS to put their hand up for a women’s team all those years ago, despite being the youngest team in the AFL competition.

Did you know that the GIANTS are the only team in the AFL industry that have had a women’s team as part of their club, for longer than they have been a solo men’s team?

Proudly based in Western Sydney and only 11 years old, we’re still growing our fan base, growing our membership numbers (even though we passed 32,000 this season!), and we’re still teaching people new to the game what AFL is.

Yet, despite all of the challenges, the GIANTS put their hand up as soon as they had an opportunity to, to say yes. Yes, we support women. Yes, we want to see an AFLW competition thrive. Yes, we want to do this.

Now working on the business side of the football club, I see this ‘Yes’ and can-do attitude every single day. There is never a challenge too great, and we are there to relish every single one of them.

I am proud to be a GIANT and am proud to have represented a team that says yes and goes after greatness despite the challenges.

We love our community, we love our people, and we love to do things differently. Come and support us this AFLW season, because no matter how great the challenge is, we know that the GIANTS have our back, and this group is something special.