Cookardinia footballer Alyce Parker hopes her story can help inspire the next generation of AFL Women's stars.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Parker spent Wednesday visiting schools in Wagga before attending the opening round of the new AFL Youth Girls competition.
The 18-year-old is enjoying a relatively quiet 'off-season' after starring for Greater Western Sydney (GWS) Giants in her first year.
Parker was picked up by the Giants with their first selection in last year's AFLW Draft. She was quick to repay the Giants' faith with a stellar debut season that saw her named runner up in the AFLW Rising Star award and in the initial 40-player All Australian squad.
Now, with that experience under her belt, Parker is trying to inspire the sport's next generation in her role as an AFL NSW-ACT ambassador.
"Its been great," Parker said.
"I'm having so much fun with the kids. It's pretty special to get around and talk to, in particular, the young girls as an AFLW player.
"If you look at 10 years ago when I was at primary school there was no such thing as AFLW and pretty much the concept of girls playing football so to be here and hopefully inspiring these girls to play is very special."
Parker believes it is important for young girls to have elite sportswomen to look up to.
"Its been good fun with them...it's good to come back home and do it in my local area," she said.
"The way they treat me as an AFLW player, it's a new concept to a lot of these girls, but you can see their eyes wide open and they are very excited with the fact that they have someone like myself, who is a girl playing sport at the highest level, which wasn't probably available three or four years ago.
"I think it's good for them and hopefully one day they can branch out into their own careers and be inspired by the pioneer players."
Parker has returned home to the family farm at Cookardinia for the AFLW off-season but is still regularly in Sydney with training and playing.
The Giants for the first time have played five invitation games in the VFL women's competition this year in a bid to be better prepared for next year's AFLW competition.
"With our disappointment with our performance this year, we straight away went into pretty much development and talking about next year and setting goals for us on a personal level, but also as a club so we can improve in areas that definitely needed it," she said.
"Already they've made lots of changes with the club and the AFLW program, which is making next year look a lot brighter."
Parker described her first season of AFLW as an 'incredible experience'.
READ MORE
