Despite growing up in Sydney, footy began for Bec Beeson on the opposite side of the country, in the Eastern Suburbs of Perth at the Swan Districts Football Club.
“Pretty much all my life, up until I moved to Perth, I played all the rugby-based sports and soccer, primarily,” Beeson says.
“I’d started watching – God forbid – the Swans every weekend on TV so I was quite the loyal follower, being the only NSW team, but aside from that I’d had very little exposure.
“Then I moved to Perth and saw it as a great opportunity to learn what AFL was all about.
“I probably fell in love with it when I was playing in Perth.
“It's an incredible game. It combined what I was best at in soccer and the rugby sports into one game and I remember after school I would go down to the park by myself and just kick a ball around by myself, just kick and catch, me by myself.
“I was obsessed with it from then.”
Across on the East Coast, her future teammate Aliesha Newman was heading in the opposite direction, towards an elite level of football, eyeing off a career with the round ball with Calder United SC in the National Women’s Premier League.
Fortuitous timing saw the pair of them picked up in the inaugural AFLW Draft back in 2016, but it was a sliding doors moment for both.
One that had them standing on a platform between two directions that could have easily seen them heading down a different route.
“If I think about where I was in my life at the time, I was living on campus at UNSW, where I was studying full time, and I was probably just being a uni kid,” Beeson says of the early murmurings of a national women’s league.
"Running around on campus, not thinking that that was going to happen and focused on my future there.
“It probably wasn’t until I was 18, which was the 12-month period before that first Draft, that I really thought about a future with the game. Prior to then, I just played it because I loved it.”
Newman, who joined the GIANTS ahead of the 2024 season with 58 games under her belt across three clubs; Melbourne, Collingwood and the Swans, had enjoyed the binary experience to Beeson, having had every opportunity to play Aussie Rules growing up but choosing to pursue soccer instead.
"Footy for me has been a very weird journey,” Newman admits.
“I grew up as a footy fanatic and didn’t really play it until I got drafted really. I played at school and a couple of games at high school but didn’t play a proper game until I was drafted.
“The year that it was announced, my best mate and I were watching the exhibition games thinking, this would be so cool to be involved in.
“A couple of weeks later, Melbourne had a rookie day where they had a heap of athletes in to give footy a go and do some tests, as each club had two rookies [spots].
“We both were selected for the second trial but neither of us were picked, which was fine as it had been a very spur of the moment, all good – let's move on thing.
“I thought that was the end of my footy journey. And then the Draft was announced, footy was off my radar and then a couple of days after I got a phone call.
“Apparently my uncle had nominated me for the draft, I didn’t know my name had been put forward.
“I got a call, and they told me ‘You’re one of five to be potentially picked up as a free agent.’
“I didn’t know what that was, but thought ok, I’ll be there. I went out to meet with Mick, the head coach of Melbourne who gave me a trial, and then the next day I got a call and he gave me the last position on the squad.
“So, I gave soccer up and the rest is history!”
While Beeson was selected at pick 32 by the GIANTS and has spent all nine AFLW seasons at the club since, Newman’s road to Western Sydney has been a series of swings and roundabouts.
Finding herself so content with just being on an AFLW list in her first season, Newman learned early that it wasn’t just enough to have the contract, she needed to show that she’d deserved her spot on Melbourne’s all-star list as well.
“I remember going into the review after a game where I had missed, recovering from a minor injury,” Newman says.
“Our coach pulled me aside and said, ‘you’re not playing again this week,’ and I couldn’t understand as I’d been training really well.
“He said ‘you are so content with being happy for your teammates that it doesn’t look like you want to be out there with them, you’re happy being a spectator.’
“So, the next week, I gave it my all and I wasn’t dropped again at Melbourne.
“That was a big turning point for me, understanding you’re allowed to be happy for your teammates but also need to put in the work to be out there with them and not just be happy to be a part of it.”
In NSW, Beeson was learning her own lessons.
She’d found her space on-field, but youth and a quiet personality had meant she struggled to find her voice off it.
“That whole first year was a massive blur,” Beeson says.
“I was very young, and I felt young as well. I felt like one of the junior girls and I don’t think I said anything that whole season, I was just like a mouse in the corner.
“I just remember working really hard. The conditioning and the strength training and the structure of being an elite athlete was a little mind blowing,” she recalls.
“I think I was still very much figuring out who I was as a person, I wasn’t fully confident in who I was in my first few years at the club and that probably showed in the way I carried myself and interacted with my teammates.”
It wasn’t for a few seasons that Beeson’s voice and understanding of her role in the team would be fully formed.
“When did I find my voice? It took me a while,” Beeson admits.
“I’ve been pretty open and honest about my early years as a GIANT and probably not being fully involved in the team and giving my 100% to the team and presenting as my real and honest self.
“I think it was only in that period of time where I had all of those concussions and had things going on away from footy as well, that 12–month period really changed me and I grew from someone who firstly was probably pretty self-absorbed as a young person, not very confident in myself or in my body.
“That period changed me because I faced the possibility of footy being taken away from me and at the end of the day all I wanted to do was come to the club and be around the girls and my mates and that bought me so much joy and happiness in a pretty grim time.
"It was only really then that I came to fully appreciate how special it is to be a part of this team and club because the girls and the club supported me so much through that period of time that I learnt the value of those relationships.”
It's something that Newman noticed immediately upon joining the GIANTS at the end of the 2023 season.
“I always thought Sydney would be the last place I’d move to if I ever had to move, it was so daunting,” Newman says.
“Now I can’t ever see myself going back to Melbourne, that’s how much I love it up here.
“To me it just feels like family. To come in and it doesn’t matter whether you’re on top of the world or grumpy, you walk in here and it’s home.
“For me, having the opportunity to connect with 32 girls which I’ve had the privilege of doing at four clubs, the excitement of such a young group makes me feel young and just connect with people on so many levels.
“The family aspect is something I love at any club but at this one, it’s something else.”
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