Staunton's journey to the 2023 AFLW Draft

Illawarra Mercury

South Coast talent Mel Staunton speaks about her journey to becoming a potential AFLW player, having nominated for the 2023 AFLW Draft this Monday night. Video: AFL NSW/ACT

Transcript

00:00 Since I started I was just really lucky to have that competitive feather in my cap.

00:06 I'm definitely head in the game for football at the moment and I'm loving it.

00:10 My name is Melanie Staunton and I play for East Coast Eagles.

00:14 My main position is centre but also learning new positions up and forward.

00:20 I would describe myself as a hardball winner.

00:23 I definitely look up to Taylor Harris heaps and her physicality around the contest as well.

00:28 I love Elyse Parker, love Tani Evans, all of them.

00:31 They're an amazing bunch of girls and I love the culture around the club as well.

00:35 I've been fortunate to be submerged in that lately which has been unreal.

00:39 I started playing Auskick when I was really young and that was only for about a year.

00:44 And then growing up I was jumping between heaps of different sports.

00:48 Started playing under 9s at the Ola Dola Dockers with the blokes because there was no female teams.

00:54 And then got to under 15s and told I wasn't allowed to play anymore.

00:57 So I was pretty much ready to walk away from the sport and just mainly focus on surfing.

01:03 Surfing's a really good outlet that will always be there for me and who knows,

01:07 I might win a world title in a few years after my football career.

01:10 I was lucky enough to get dispensation to play in the senior comp as a coach from home.

01:16 I was pretty much napping at her heels, let me play senior fitting.

01:20 She's always told me growing up she didn't have that same opportunity and it was really hard

01:25 because there wasn't that pathway for her.

01:28 She didn't want that to happen to anyone else so she put in everything that she could

01:32 to try and help me be able to play footy.

01:35 I loved going out there knowing that I was the smallest, knowing that I had nothing to me.

01:40 But I knew that I wasn't going to back down to the challenge.

01:43 I did get squished a lot of the time but I used my speed to my advantage.

01:48 And then got picked up by the Giants and started the academy.

01:52 Yeah, now we're here.

01:53 [MUSIC]

01:56 [Music]

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