I start this diary entry from above the clouds, thousands of feet in the air, as we make our way to Perth for our Round 7 clash against West Coast.

It’s been a long time since we have flown together as a team. Our last plane ride was in Round 5 2020 when we played against the Gold Coast in McKay.

Coincidentally that was our last win. Here’s hoping this trip brings the same fortune.

Away trips are lots of fun. You always end up getting to know your teammates a lot better and stories become folklore. Like the time Amy McDonald took toilet paper from the hotel at McKay because there was a shortage in Ballarat.

We are sharing the flight with Fremantle women’s team. Despite a quiet start, by the end of the flight we all end up chatting and sharing stories of what it’s like to be AFLW players on different sides of the country.

We discuss their fantastic win over Carlton and they wish us all the best for our game against West Coast. The camaraderie is nice.

Fun

Sitting in the row behind me is serial pest Maddy McMahon. She’s trying to annoy me already and we’ve only been in the air for 20 minutes.

Last weekend after our Carlton game Maddy said something out of the blue.

Walking off the ground after our loss, she said to our team,“did anyone have fun today? Because I had fun.”

We all turned around, looked at Maddy.

“Yep, I had fun.”

“Yeah, I actually enjoyed that game.” 

We all agreed. Last weekend's game was fun. We finally started to play footy the way we want to. We got some speed on the ball, moved the ball into space and scored our highest total of the year. All positive signs.

Quaran-time

We’ve just arrived at Perth and as the borders are still closed we have to go directly to our hotel and quarantine. Do not stop, do not pass go, go straight to quarantine.

Everyone has their own individual room and our dinner is delivered to our door. We aren’t allowed to leave our room until 12:01am. I am getting the feeling that there will be plenty of stories from this trip that we will talk about for a long time.

The three-hour time difference isn’t ideal, nor is the game being played on a Monday afternoon in Western Australia, but I thought to myself this morning, last year we didn’t make it to Round 7.

It’s great that we are still playing despite the difficulties in the world at the moment. We are fortunate to be on a plane, with our friends, playing the game we love.

Where there’s a will there’s a WAy

A lot of our team have made sacrifices to play this game. Players have had to take leave from work, missed shifts, changed shifts, spent their birthdays by themselves in quarantine.

But I bet if you asked any one of us, there’s nowhere else we would want to be.

One player I’m excited to watch tomorrow is Georgia Clarke or ‘Geece’ as I call her. Geece has been playing some great footy in our VFLW side and now has an opportunity to carry on that good form at AFLW level.

That’s one great change that has occurred this year, the scheduling of the VFLW to coincide with the AFLW program.

It gives our players who aren’t selected in the team a chance to still keep up their match fitness, get their hands on the footy and get their confidence up.

8:30

The clock has just hit 8:30pm, so it’s time for me to head to sleep. It’s 11:30pm back in Melbourne and well past my bedtime.

I can’t wait to see my teammates in the morning. I can see it now – we will share our stories about quarantine, go grab a coffee and then get down to business playing footy and having fun.