Both club and competition looked a little different when Bec Beeson was first drafted to the AFLW for its inaugural season in 2016.
GIANTS HQ - a refurbished driving range - was barely a year old on the October evening when Nicola Barr was announced as the number one pick for the club and Beeson’s first teammate.
Beeson was selected with pick 32, joining her then UNSW teammates Jacinda Barclay, Maddy Collier and Mai Nguyen on the GIANTS list, with just 14 Australian Rules players originating from Sydney from the 216 contracts offered in the first year of AFLW.
Representing just six percent of the league, Beeson is now one of only two players left in the competition, while athletes from NSW make up more than 30 percent of the GIANTS’ list alone.
Such is Beeson’s enduring impact on the GIANTS, first as a player, now as its AFLW captain.
Delivering a career-high three goal, MVG performance against the Eagles in round one, the 29-year-old has found another rung on her ladder.
Speaking to media ahead of the team’s travel to Casey Fields to take on the Demons in round two, Beeson credited her consistency in output coming into the season for her ability to continue to perform at new heights.
“I've probably got to a stage where I'm really confident in my game,” Beeson says.
“When I'm out there, I can sort of just play on play on instinct, I think it's just consistency, to be honest.
“The past couple of years I've worked pretty hard at improving my running ability, increasing workload so that you have a high-speed running and can get to uncontested ball first.
“So was good to yeah, good to get forward and get on the end of a bit of team play there.”
While many other inaugural players reached the 75-game mark ahead of her, Beeson’s interrupted seasons meant she was restricted from game time due to concussion concerns.
"I've had some, I guess some injury stuff along the way, but I don't want to ever be like, woe is me,” Beeson says of the setback.
"I think every athlete, well, nearly every athlete sort of goes through a bad injury or has their individual challenges over their time.
"I probably came out the other side of it having grown a lot and probably became a better teammate because of it.
“I just love being here. This team means so much to me.”
Her resilience and insistence to re-find her best football has been evident in each season since, taking over the captaincy from teammate Alicia Eva in 2024, a year in which she also claimed her second Gabrielle Trainor Medal.
Coming in second in the best and fairest count last year, Beeson has continued her phenomenal run of form into the 2026 season, with 18 touches and 437 running metres to kick off the year.
Beeson reflects any praise back to the team’s ability to play the system, refining and delivering on the structure and style that Cam Bernasconi has been building over the last four seasons as its coach.
“I felt like we had really good control and composure,” Beeson says of the match.
“So it was just trust in your role, trust in the process and keep the pressure really high, which we did.
“We were the number one team in the league for pressure rating last week.”
Unable to single out one moment through her storied career, Beeson reflected on how fortunate she still feels to call this work.
Even now, almost ten years to the day of her drafting, it still feels like a reverie.
“I just love what I do,” Beeson says.
“It's a dream coming here everyday and being part of and getting to work with this team.”
