AFLW's most courageous ever footballer

0:00Welcome to another episode of A-Full W. Inside Out. I'm Laura Spurway. I'm with Meg McDonald. It's special guest Friday. Special guest one is Meg Mac. I'm a co-host, mate. Okay. Don't get ahead of yourself. I've noted. I'm not allowed to call you a special co-host. Co-host. Special co-host, Meg McDonald. Yeah. Now before we get started, Meg, we have a sponsor on board which is super exciting. Oh, huge. Mr. Sally, coffee cups, premium grade, specialty coffee filled with precious memories of family, love and passion and every sip because it's a small business. Started with dad, now Daniel's running it. So a big thank you. You get a big welcome to Mr. Sally. It's so great to have you on board and we love small business stories. We certainly do. And listeners and fans of the pod will know how much caffeine I consume. It's consumed. So yeah. Yeah. Prior to E-Chef. Yeah. It's Monday Eps. And this is what happens now when you retire. And I wonder if it's the same of our special guest because joining us today is Chelsea Randall. Now she guided the cruise to the inaugural AFLW premiership. Three time premiership captain, five time all Australian,

1:00a record six time winner of the AFLW players most courageous player award. In June this year after 80 incredible games Chelsea announced her retirement due to concussion related issues but it's clear that she leaves behind a massive, massive legacy. It goes far beyond the football field and we're so excited to have her join us on the podcast today. Welcome Chelsea. Hello team. How are we? We're good. We're good. Are you also consuming lots of caffeine? I am but I'm sadly would like one of yours actually because I'm just still on a home brew over here. We can organise that. Yes. Yes. Mr. Sally helps me with that. How have you been? I've been going really well. Thank you. It's been a unique transition, unique journey. I've been involved in footy for over a decade and yeah for it to kind of be flipped quite quickly in a moment. It has been a unique and interesting place navigating at all. I want to hear what it's like and this is a question for both of you

2:03actually because obviously Meg it's your first season not playing as well. Just what it's like observing and absorbing the first season of player, first season of players as a retired player and not actually out there on the field. I think I'd have a really hard time with that like I'd want to be in there but how has it been for both of you and that experience? Well I'll make a few comments first because I feel like with Chelsea's accolades that we listed quite rightly I feel any comparison to be a little bit I mean I'm very appreciative of it and I also think a comparison between our experiences is probably there's probably really starkly different. I knew going into this season I retired in November last year and I've had quite a long run up into it and in terms of how I've experienced this season I've lent right into the consumption of it I'm really enjoying lucky enough to do some special comments we're doing this podcast so I feel like there are always going to be things that you know I sort of calmed myself by thinking I could have retired at 45

3:08with five premierships and a severe like Chelsea's I still would have wanted to play a little bit longer you know because you loved the game but I've had the advantage of you know a little bit more time to absorb and prepare for what it was going to be like watching watching the girls run out there but I'm sure that's been you know much more complicated for you Chelsea. Yeah it's been it's been interesting yeah I mean at the start of the year I was obviously had planned to play footy for a few more years hopefully but yeah so I was in the thick of pre-season you know did our pre-season camp we're under a new coach we've got lots of new staff not lots of new players and yeah obviously last year I had a concussion that took me out for seven weeks I felt really confident and actually returned for two games last year and then yeah was kind of in the thick of pre-season and was doing a bit of a contact drill um for my first kind of taste of some contact and uh yeah straight away like afterwards received

4:13um I was just receiving like minor bumps like as you would in the contest with lots of bodies and and whatnot and yeah just got started getting some starry vision immediately after for a couple of minutes and I was like oh no um like I haven't even I didn't even get like a big big knock here like what's happening to me um so I was a bit confused by it all and so we went into concussion protocols and about uh yeah a week later um I was in a non-contact drill but unfortunately had an incidental elbow to the head and then received like more um starry vision immediately with that and so it kind of it was pretty obvious after those kind of experiences you know also took that information to the AFL and um some neurologists and got their expert opinions from the medical head of medical there and um yeah they came back with a recommendation to to retire from 40 um and so once I'd kind of received that I think internally I also knew it was you know it was time

5:16to kind of hang up the um the boots and yeah it was just kind of obviously that happened in June and so it was pretty um it feels like it's just gone so quickly and all honestly and I'm just so blessed that I have a beautiful family and support and my beautiful toddler uh Tommy who you might even hear um having a tantrum in the background at the moment yeah my beautiful wife is just helping him out um so yeah so he's been a blessing half a majoring this transition we've gone on camping adventures and um just spent some time away just trying to work out what's next but um same with you Meg I've jumped into some Fox 40 special comments and and really enjoyed that um I think that's kept me busy watching the 40 which was nice thank you for being so generous with what you've shared about your experience across the last couple of months we might you circle back to it but I'm really keen to go back sort of to the start as well in the podcast we've looked at the history of the competition and how it's grown and developed and you've been such a major major figure in the

6:20development of the comp in the excellence of the competition along the way so I'm keen to get your reflections on you know where it's at now etc but if you could give us some background to your pathway to you know 2017 and and the inaugural competition and and debing for the crows what was footy what was your experience of footy as a youngster yeah it's um it feels like yesterday somewhat I I remember my brother had always played footy he's uh three years older than me my dad was the boundary umpire always volunteering my mum was the team manager and I always heavily involved around the safety based singers um back in WA and I was often the girl that was running the water half for my brother's team or I was behind in the canteen seven hot chips and gravy um and so I remember I was kicking the ball around with my dad and my brother's half time game and uh the under 11's coach actually spotted me kicking a footy and he said oh um you can kick do you want to

7:20do you want to play like we're short a few numbers tomorrow do you want to feel in for the boys team and I thought oh like am I allowed to because there's no other girls out here and sure enough yeah um asked dad and he was like yep go for it mate and then um ask mum she said no straight away so it had to convince mum and then uh yeah I remember my first game I just in the old school junior boys you have you know you're facing the opposition uh yeah nails checked by the umpires and your boots checked and all the boys in the opposition who are facing me they're on in their line looking at me in my team mates and they've spotted me with my ponytail and just started laughing and thought it was absolutely hysterical so um that there was a girl playing in the team so at that point this you know 11-year-old I was just I guess I was just so oblivious in a sense I remember just standing there awkwardly as a young youngster and thinking oh my god um I clearly don't belong here

8:24and um my grandad come out to watch me and yeah instead I just decided instead of running off the ground I just picked the one that was laughing the hardest and I remember his number um on the back of his guns he will yes about 30 seconds into the game he picked up the ball and I just smashed him in a tacky into the ground and I thought well I kind of like this game this is actually really fun this is exciting without me wanting to be like yeah don't endorse violence but I love that and I think I mean we'll get to this but that is such a reflection of how we think of you and the way you played fearless courageous body on the line type of player and it sounds like you just had that instinct in you from a young age yeah and I think um I mean the boys turned into brothers for me later on in the season but very early on you know no one ever wanted to pass the ball to me the opposition would laugh at you every single week the parents you'd hear the murmurs and say why is a girl playing and um and you kind of learned like if I got hurt you'd hear the murmurs

9:30of like and this is why a girl shouldn't play and so I took it upon myself that every time I got knocked down it was almost like this voice in my head was like get up like get up what are you doing like you need to prove that you belong here like you're tough like you can you know it's like I had to just constantly try and every week prove to whoever parents the umpires the coaches and everyone around you that like I love this game just as much as the bloke next to me and so why why is this so different or why why is everyone making these comments about this so it's actually makes you really get upset because I'm just thinking yeah yeah like only because I've got a seven-year-old daughter and I'm just thinking about it through the lens of her and being like imagine being she's a bit younger than you are then but that age and having to deal with all of that at a young age you don't belong laughing at you thinking you're not up to it you know like you said girl shouldn't play footy because they get hurt and I just think like this is why if if people are having conversations

10:32about AFLW and where are we at and are we progressing and why isn't at this level yet if that's what you were dealing with as an 11-year-old my daughter is growing up knowing that women play football yeah and that's her reality and that's the difference and I have always thought that it's so you know I and people like me who didn't pick it up until they're out of life and subconsciously and whatever excluded themselves from playing oh so much to players like you Chelsea who did it anyway so I'm really interested in you know you you were experiencing this teasing bullying you know prejudice we'll say but there was obviously some sort of feeling that that it gave you that you gravitated towards so when I started footy training it you know in at 23 years old my lasting memory of that first ever training was how loud the team was during the warm-up lap shout out Aliso day she was so vocal with and yeah June with how she was encouraging the team and

11:34I'd never as a as a girl in sport I'd never experienced someone just being so vocal and owning that space in that way and that's the feeling that stayed with me I'm interested in what it was that kept you come like what was the feeling in your body as opposed to what you're experiencing emotionally what was the feeling in your body that informed the fact that you stayed on and kept playing um in all honesty uh footy had the power to bring my family together and um and what I mean by that and I'm like I'm an open book so I'm happy to share but um my grand was like my number one fan and so she would come to every single game and she'd sit in her camping chair rain hallow shine uh even people were trying to get her undercover when it's hailing and raining and they're like come on Rose come under and she's like no my granddaughters out there playing like so am I like I'm out here cheering and so um and my parents had broken up um when I was around that age as well and so it actually brought my family like together and for a young kid it's

12:37somewhat made it feel normal that my family was all together and my brother was there cheering me on he was like an assistant coach um yeah dad would be involved mum was involved and I just I loved it I loved the game I just I loved the freedom um I was also playing basketball at the time um within an older women's um team it was the like kind of like the state league and I was you know quite good at at that level and um was progressing but it got really serious really quickly for me and so I think in all honesty I just loved the freedom of footy and I loved that it brought my family and people together and there was another part of it my values that I now realise but inclusivity was just such a big part of for me and I think I just thought to myself well if I'm here then maybe more girls might have a go and so I just wanted to make sure that no one ever felt that way again and so every time a girl turned up to play or when I moved into the open

13:42women's competition we'd have like six girls at training and you just wanted to make sure those six just had the best time ever and they felt encouraged and it was such a welcoming environment and you're just like yes because you know well they're going to rock up next week and they're going to bring a mate as well we're going to have eight people which right and so it was just always this um I don't know the experience with the reliance actually helped me probably realise that inclusivity and the power of belonging and making people feel safe so they could actually enjoy themselves I can hear so much passion in your voice when you're talking about it and that's just so wonderful and you obviously were a marquee signing for Adelaide when they started and the success of that football club in this league has been absolutely phenomenal what was it like to land at that club and have the success that you have the run that you've had at the Adelaide Crosse which I mean we're sort of seeing that now with North Melbourne but in terms of dominance

14:43w for the the period of the competition it's really been Adelaide and Brisbane yeah it's been unique you know I mean I'm so forever grateful that I landed at the Adelaide Crosse at the time I was actually living out in a remote mining town in Newman it was a 13 hour drive from Perth and so through the Melbourne exhibition games and Western Bordogg's exhibition games I think a couple of people had heard maybe off my name through some of those and Adelaide came out and David Noble at the time actually flew up to meet me up in my small country town that I was working in I was working in a high school to engage kids in netborne foot in and help them with their school and whatnot and yeah he said would you like to come across to the Crosse and had a couple other different opportunities available at the time but I think that's the biggest thing for me in why Adelaide was actually prior to AFLW beginning if you speak to people within the national

15:48competition when we had state competitions and stuff Adelaide probably hadn't quite had a female footy pathway like they only had like 16 teams across youth there was no youth girls there was no junior girls no kind of pathway in Adelaide like there was in WA starting up in Victoria it was there Queensland was slowly getting there too and so they kind of didn't really have a lot of success in the national competition so in all honesty I went there expecting to win a wooden spoon to the Adelaide Crosse I just I just wanted to make sure that if we have this AFLW competition there aren't blowout games like zero to 150 and I just wanted to make sure that you know there was it was competitive and the teams were scoring and you know if I could play a role in just helping start that female footy pathway here in South Australia you know that'd be awesome and we saw that within three months it went from 16 teams to 67 just in South Australia and then

16:53think there are over 200 and something odd teams here now which is awesome so it just took off as Senna's our Crosse team you know took place here in SA which was really powerful thing to see as the your sense of purpose is so palpable from when you were 11 through to starting at the Adelaide Crosse I'm really interested in some of the challenges that happen perhaps it in an inaugural club it sounded like that sense of equity and and driving the competition forward was really important to you and yet anecdotally I feel like I've heard throughout not necessarily about the Crosse but about the challenges of continuing to advance a program when compared to the teams that have had the opportunity to have a look and observe and then come in later into the competition how was it on the inside of the Crosse trying to continue to advance the team across the course of the past 10 years yeah it's been been quite the journey and it's I guess initially started if you think back to a lot of people might remember it but the AFL actually didn't want to give the Adelaide Crosse a

17:59a licence to have a women's team because they thought there wasn't enough talent in SA alone and so credit to the board and to the whole Adelaide Fuddy club they went no no like okay right well what else can we do here so they went to the Northern Territory and said what if we put application in with the Northern Territory in South Australia and you know we get the best of your talent and SA's talent and we combine and we have a team that way and so like it got approved and the Crosse were putting a team in which was awesome but it meant one third of our team lived and trained in Darwin and the other you know two thirds were here in Adelaide and so when you think about that like we didn't see our like a third of our teammates for the whole week and then you would both you know the Northern Territory players and SA would fly to Melbourne and we'd be like hey guys how's your week been yeah great that's awesome oh what have you been doing there's only been eight of you guys at training so we're never allowed to complain about the heat because our poor mates

19:01up in Darwin we had about 95% humidity and there's only eight of them running around in full ground drills like it was just crazy what they kind of went through and experienced and then we just forced ourselves to you know put the phones away at the dining room table because we only had you know dinner together breakfast and then play a game of footy and so relationships to us became so important and whatever time you had it was quality pure quality we'd be playing games on the bus all this kind of stuff so we really had to make it work so it was a recipe for disaster and so to win the first ever premier ship like amazing well with a third of your team you know not even training together was was just beyond crazy in that sense and then obviously and that was Beck Goddard was a key driver in that Aaron Phillips obviously was just such a great talent and really drove out elite standards and we had just had some remarkable people within that program Courtney Krami it obviously been South Australian absolute star of football here you know

20:07which was key and then we had Matthew Clark come in as our head coach in 2019 and his first year we won our second premier ship so it was kind of just float on from there and yeah it's pretty surreal just the journey I guess so far it's interesting to think about what we attribute your success to from the outside when it sounds like it's made of all the best stuff in footy that connection piece the valuing your time together making the most of training you spoke about 2019 and I was interested in in talking to you about when expansion started to happen in the competition I remember we were of course in you know CBA negotiations around that time and I think Victorian clubs and players were really bullish about we want to play everyone once and expand expand expand but I it sounded to me at the time and still that you're really interested in the sustainability of the competition can you give me your perspective on on at the time how you were feeling about expansion um I was in all honesty I was probably nervous about it um because I just I was from the

21:15very beginning of AFLW I'd spent you know like many women and the pioneers before me and stuff had spent many many years trying to earn respect and just be seen and heard and whatnot which is you know it's taken us so long to kind of get there and then um I was adamant that just because they gave us this competition in 2017 I remember running out for our first game at the Everton Oval against GWS and I was like if we don't perform well or if this is blowout games or if no one comes to watch us and whatnot they'll take this competition away from us like full stop like and we would just won't have it we will not have a competition for the next 11-year-old girl that come through and I was so nervous about that and so then when it was a success in the first year and whatnot it was just brilliant to kind of see that progression um and yeah we want to say as many girls playing 40 years possible and I can see the um you know how amazing it is now and

22:21that those expansion clubs you know have grown so quickly and whatnot which is awesome um but at the time they were you know throwing out of I know you remember as well they'll they'll throw an out that we could have longer seasons but only maybe one game a week would be broadcasted and so it was like well what do we what do we really want to value here and being seen and every team being on broadcast I think broadcast is just such a huge component and that no other sport was actually having um like that exposure at that point in time as well so it was something that was pretty unique to us but they were it's crazy the conversations that we're having to do a CBA thing every single year weren't we it was just bonkers. It's an important bit I remember feeling you know you feel so passionately and then you finally you know have an opportunity through the PA to share a conversation and a roundtable and to get the perspective of interstate teams who were trying to work full time while travel every second week and the impossibility of that it's

23:24just the importance of coming together and connecting across you know club borders um was incredibly powerful at time and something I really hope today's players still continue to get after as much your club and the success of your club becomes a focus it's really important to connect across clubs if you're going to continue to grow and um you know progress the leak. I'm not surprised hearing you talk about that Chelsea the way that you were nervous about the loss of the competition being a driving force for you to perform at your best so we said you won the AFLPA AFLW most courageous players six times hearing you speak about your desire to almost shoulder the burden of keeping this competition going and and being true to your 11 year old self and how that 11 year old felt when they were first exposed to this game I wonder how how hard the line is to tread when you are that most courageous player whatever that looks like to you whilst also you know trying for self preservation to to stay in the sport as long as you can. Yeah yeah so I don't think I've ever I don't

24:29think I know how else to play in all honesty um but yeah it's uh I don't know I just I just love footy and um yeah it was uh it was just an interesting time obviously AFLW and just saying the growth of it but and knowing so many women before me weren't getting this opportunity and I was just so lucky that the time frame you know to kind of come into it as a would have been 25 26 year old um to come into AFLW was just surreal but yeah it was uh just a unique journey of just wanting to play exciting footy because yeah you do you I know a lot of players as well in that initial start just wanted to wanted to wanted it to be a success so that it remained and that young girls could aspire and I think the coolest thing I've seen change over time is behind the fence behind the fence is the biggest thing like in the first few years behind the fence they're just the young girls which

25:31we were catering for and we were trying to inspire to say hey this is something for you in the future as well now but the coolest thing I've seen is the high school boys um behind the fence and the the grandpas that come out and they're the ones that want to grab a photo and you know get the autographs and talk about footy and stuff with you and it's just like that whole society shift is just awesome to see yeah absolutely I don't want to speak for you but you gave this speech I will never forget hearing you speak accepting one of those awards at the AFLPA awards and you spoke about how you felt compelled to play the way that you did because you needed to demonstrate how women could play the game um I thought it was incredibly moving I remember standing there listening to you being like imagine being captain by this woman this is this is incredible so I just like one more one more question on how you play the game can you whether it's about how you play the game or how you perceive the different challenges in the game how do you what's your relationship to the word courage

26:35and how would you define it on the on the footy field uh courage it's uh in all honesty on the footy field it's just showing up in the best version that you know how and having courage to um it's courage is just used in every single moment of every single day like of every decision you choose to make and I think that that's the key is that life is full of choices regardless like full stop footy is full of choices do I jump into this pack or do I not and um I think life in general it's life is hard there's there's hard things that happen in life there's injuries there's grief and loss um there's all those different types of things that can happen to us as individuals

27:35and I think the key thing knowing that we all just have a choice in life and how we choose to respond to a situation and I think that's courage I just it might not be the right decision and maybe I do things differently but at this point in my life I'm just still on the best I can with the information I have and I think I've always just tried to go with that in my gut and trust myself and just know that there is always a choice and so whenever I've hidden obstacle or where something's been difficult or it's just having courage to stop and reflect and actually just go what are my choices here and I can go down the negative lane down this way and or I can maybe try and see the world through a perspective of opportunities and yeah I guess courage to me on the football field is just you know going out there and having courage to put your foot across the

28:38white line is the first biggest thing you're on a national stage you're on tv people looking at you watching you criticizing what you say or do um yeah that's courage just to put the jumper on it's courage then to be able to shake hands with your opposition after the game and you might have gotten absolutely beltered um maybe had two touches it's courage to turn around to say to them and be like what are mate like great game by you cheesy had me done you know it's courage to thank the umpires even though they might have made support decisions and cost the game or something it's it's courage to just just show up in a way that makes you a good human. Have you had to have this conversation with yourself after you retired I feel like it's it's it sounds like the kind of conversation that you would have had to have had to help you come to terms with what happened in terms of there are time and before you wanted it to happen to be able to say to yourself I chose to play the way that I played I don't know whether you regret that

29:40or not it sounds like you don't but making that choice having led to this point is it just something that you've had to try and accept yeah good question I think um yeah like I said I think I've just always had that perspective that um I really don't have control over some of the things that happen in my own life and me being forced into retirement is one of those scenarios and yeah I'm I'm allowed to be said some days I might be sad um some days I might be truly joyful and just enjoying not being in pain every day from running around and getting battered and bruised but um you know there's just there's so much more to life and I'm just so forever grateful for like the journey that I've had in footy I'm grateful for being able to play for the Adelaide Crosse for as long as I have for the journey it's just been surreal and yeah it's a conversation I probably have

30:43you know daily is how how do I want to show up for my son how do I want to be a good example for him and how how do you deal with hard stuff um you know that might pop up for us and I think just acknowledging that it's okay to feel whatever you feel um but how I choose to behave that's probably why not I just continuously check myself in and make sure that you know the behaviors that I want to be and I choose to portray that yeah I guess I just want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and say yeah like a good human mate and a trustya and you're just still on the best you can with the information you have so um yeah life is incredibly incredibly true of you but I also you know we're saying earlier our careers finished in incredibly different circumstances you had an amazing career and we're saying we're almost

31:44exactly the same age but um you know to have to process emotions around you were still at the peak of your powers is much different but I think what sport teaches us a lot as you're saying is you've just got to sit in emotion somewhere like you know they will they will pass you got to walk through your life can't go over it or around it um and there are things that people ask you about fighting the end of your career and you're like wow these feelings we're going to be inevitable that at whatever point they might be more complicated in certain circumstances but they they can also be temporary and there can be a lot you can learn from them as well so I mean speaking about courage to come on today and and to share that with us we really really appreciate it I wanted to ask you um you know about your beautiful wife MJ and the you know congratulations we're very excited thank you the announcement that you're expecting again can we take a moment to see little Tommy announce it big boy you're gonna be a big bro hey do you want a baby sister or baby

32:46brother uh baby sister oh my gosh so cute so beautiful can you can you tell us about the joy of of playing with MJ and then having her support throughout the end of your career yeah oh she's been my rock um it's crazy uh I've said I'd never date a teammate ever full stop and then MJ came along and um story it had to change and uh yeah so I was a unique journey and um you know yeah obviously teammates and then um she retired and had our son we got married and she's you know continuing on coaching as well which she just loves uh being involved in and uh yeah it's been quite the journey and I'm I mean without footy you know I would have never have met her and I would never have my little boy Tommy so I've really got the whole game to

33:46to thank for how my life is you know turned out well we know that your bubs do in March I think it is so as much as you've had a lot to get your head around this year and this is something else you know it's it's expanding your family it's a massive decision I've often found you know kids to be a really good leveler and when I've had periods in my life where you know things haven't been great for whatever reason having them first of all they keep you humble because they just do not care they don't they have a crap what kind of mood you're in but just having them in your life to to help get past things or distract you from things or hearing their giggles or it's just something I think that that really helps and it gives you perspective on things in life so I can understand why at the moment having your little boy around knowing that you've got another baby on the way it might be something that you can just throw yourself into as you're making this transition yeah and I know I have been honest because Tommy is uh yeah turned into my best mate he's

34:50we do everything together and um you know I just want to keep making memories with him and went camping and you know teaching him how to do different things is I get so much joy out of that and yeah you're right Laura and saying like he does like kids they do just keep your present and in the moment and an example of that was he's obsessed with trains and so when we're driving um along off to his preschool every morning you know how you normally most people in a car when you see the boom gate come down for a train you'd be like oh I hit the train I'm like damn it I'm gonna be two more minutes late and carry up and all this kind of stuff and now that me and Tommy are coming up to the train tracks they're coming up and he's like do you reckon it's gonna be yeah is it gonna be a red light like are we gonna get a red light I can't wait for the red light my day I've never I've never prayed for red lights ever before I'm like you please make

35:53yes red light the boom gates coming down we're gonna see the train we're gonna see the train and it's just so exciting and um like that's just an example of just how he keeps me present and things that I would maybe get annoyed with before my life that I just I'm like this is so much joy to see a train go past wow like how lucky are we today so good and I think we're we're coming to a close but I just wanted to bookmark the conversation as we I'm sure Laura is gonna ask you you know what's next for you and the in the immediate and long-term future but I'm interested in your perspective on the games today considering what you know you spoke about your pathway and where football was at when you were 11 and how the girls are coming into the competition now to part of what do you see do you consider things to have changed in terms of what makes a good footballer what's distinguishing what a good team from a not so good team and do you think that the pathway now is setting them up for greater success than it did when you were you know being an

36:53awesome player in the competition having just played with your brother and the boys yeah I think the pathway is incredible now like to see the talent that is coming through like Megan I'm sure you're the same as well when you watch it you're just like how like how is this 18-year-old like just absolutely carving this up like yeah you're supposed to go how and I go we would have been great if we had this but yeah good Chelsea round of applause with all this yeah there is a little bit of that like jealousy isn't there for it's like I wish I wish we had that like how could how good could we have really been with all that those resources in that pathway behind us and that exposure but I mean I just I look at them now like I love watching Ava Asha Ava Asha and then I love watching Ella Roberts zippy fish those girls coming through my god I'm just like how like some of their decision-making as well on the park is just incredible and so

37:56yeah there's so much talent out there and I'm just so happy for them that they get the opportunity to showcase this and I really think in the next from now in the next five years we're just going to see such a complete shift in how the game is like in terms of skills their knowledge of the game is just it's jumping in our in space so it's it's incredible to see so just to finish I mean we know you won't be lost to the game you've got too much knowledge and too much experience too much passion for and too much passion for it so what do you see a head view and are you doing a little bit of Fox but what do you see a head view in terms of whether you stay engaged and involved yeah I mean in all honesty right now I was just been saying to myself and just dabbling dabbling in a few things but like I've spent the last three years coaching in our men's AFL program as a development coach so I've really enjoyed that space and then you know so yeah doing some coaching

38:58would definitely be something that I'll be open to yeah the media stuff is really interesting to me and I really love working in the leadership space as well so there's probably those three pillars something that I'm really interested in kind of looking at and just kind of dabbling in at the moment so yeah it's it is really cool well thank you for dabbling with our podcast it's been such a treat to talk to you and we really appreciate your honesty don't we Meg we absolutely do she's greatest ever play we've had on the pod which you know she's the first but I'm sure you're saying you're gonna hold that toad you're gonna hold that title for a long time yet I'm sure thanks guys thanks for having me no it's been great speaking to you thank you so much Chelsea and thank you everybody for listening we hope you enjoyed the video on the way again we hope you team wins and we'll be back Monday