The GIANTS AFLW pre-season camp took place in Canberra, or as head coach Cam Bernasconi refers to it, ‘God’s Country’.

Players with flexible work schedules travelled down early on Thursday afternoon, and were split up to visit the local club teams. I attended the Belconnen Magpies training alongside Isadora Macleay, Jodie Hicks and local Canberra product Emily Pease.

Both Jodie and Emily played for the Magpies during their time in Canberra and were welcomed with open arms by familiar faces. The Magpies players took part in rotations that included tackling, goal kicking and handballing. It was incredible seeing so many young girls and women at footy training - footy in Canberra is absolutely thriving.

Friday morning was a buffet breakfast at the hotel before we were given a schedule of three different public schools in the area. Tarni Evans joined our convoy to make us a team of five. Each school involved different activities – Q&As with the kids, push up competitions, as many star jumps as you can do in a minute (I lost count and still came last), and a few different footy drills and skills. Visiting the schools was a real highlight of the trip. The kids were so eager to ask questions, that ranged from, ‘Pineapple on a pizza, yes or no?’ to ‘Have you experienced barriers to playing footy because of your gender?’

A lot of the kids played a range of different sports, and there were plenty of footy players too. It's an awesome experience to share more about the GIANTS as a club and the AFLW competition, as well as give the kids some GIANTS merch. Manuka Oval in Canberra is one of our favourite grounds to play on, and we hope that we get to see a lot of the kids and their families there this season.

Friday night was the official start of the AFLW pre-season camp. We came together at the Luemeah Lodge, our accommodation for the weekend, for a session about our values as a playing group. Before heading to bed, we were warned by the coaching staff and high performance to get a good sleep – Saturday was going to be a big day.

Our alarms woke us up from our anxious slumber at 5.40am. Grace Hill and I rolled out of our bunk beds ready for action, already dressed in our thermals from the night before. Cambridge McCormick took quite some time to get ready and made it out to the carpark just in time for strength and conditioning coach Tom ‘TR’ Reddin’s 6am sharp arrival time.

We walked down the hill to a boot camp style set up at the base of the carpark, and rotated between boxing sets, medicine ball slams, lifts with kettle bells, and six one-minute plank holds. The session lasted just under an hour before we walked inside for breakfast.

We then travelled by bus to Manuka Oval for our main training session. Bracing for the cold, many players were decked out in long compression wear. After a massive session on the track, players mingled with GIANTS members and fans who had joined for the open session. A crowd favourite was young Henry, who had travelled again with his dad from Gosford for the session, and was repping AFLW jumper number 11 (that's me!).

Great choice Henry.

Into the changerooms for a refuel and showers, before donning new team t-shirts for the GIANTS AFLW Amazing Race around Canberra.

Split into teams of six or seven, each person was provided with a bicycle. Only one iPhone was allowed per team - for navigation purposes - throughout the race. The challenge started at Manuka Oval with a skills challenge, before teams jumped onto their bicycles (helmets on, safety first) to the next destination.

Players would navigate using maps to race to iconic destinations around Canberra – the National Museum, the National Library, the Rats of Tobruk memorial - where they would be provided with a challenge before they could move on; 500 push ups between your team, link arms to do a 100 sit ups, three laps 20m of bear crawls, 1000 handballs etc.

Players rode over 30km before arriving at the final destination - Capital Brewing - where the winners were crowned and players and staff came together for dinner.

We're just a few weeks into pre-season ahead of season eight starting in early September, but last week's camp set the tone for a big big season 2023.