Sophie Kavanagh played her first game of footy in 2023.

Two years later, she’s a contracted GIANTS player, at an elite AFLW facility just a few kilometres down the road from where she grew up in West Pennant Hills.

It’s a fast-tracked journey, one that speaks to the importance of the GIANTS in the development of Australian rules in the region and why seven years earlier, CEO Dave Mathews fought hard for a foundation license in the competition.

Footy had never factored for Kavanagh, who focused on athletics and touch football growing up, with an eye to be a professional athlete.

With little awareness of the grassroots game through primary school, she’d not actually seen a game of Australian rules until her high school sports coordinator threw her into a school team to make up numbers.

“Growing up I started athletics at four and competed until I was 19 and played touch footy all through high school, both of which got to a pretty high level,” Kavanagh says.

“Weekends were very busy, I’ve got three older siblings, and we all did a fair bit of sport, so mum and dad were on the go running from sport to sport.

“In the night times, I’ll be honest, we were not watching the AFL, we’d be watching rugby.

“I played one game for school in year 11 and I was very scared to get tackled. I loved every aspect of it bar the tackles, so I'd just run and get rid of the thing!”

Still pursuing her Olympic dream, the one game stayed solitary for years afterwards, until a persistent school coaches nagging finally paid off, when Kavanagh attended a session with the Macquarie University Women’s AFL program.

“That night, I came home and told mum that training for an individual sport was too hard on me and playing AFL was a lot more fun and rewarding,” Kavanagh said.

“I tried through that first season to keep up athletics as well, but I just didn’t love it anymore, so I made the full-time transition to AFL.”

She’d find herself sharing the pitch that night with two future GIANTS teammates, Caitlin Fletcher, who was an established star of the AFL Sydney competition, and Katherine Smith, inaugural AFLW player who coached the club through their 2022 season.

Fletcher’s journey had begun a little earlier, playing her first footy with St Ives at under 16s level, having not been exposed to the women’s game until the GIANTS AFLW team came into being and joining her local club two years later.

“There weren’t really pathways for girls at that time, so I wasn’t really exposed to it,” Fletcher says.

“I didn’t have any friends or family that grew up playing it.”

It was her transition into senior footy, playing with Mac Uni, that a pathway to the elite game and the GIANTS presented itself.

“In that first year I was coached by Smitty and [40-game GIANTS player] Jodie Hicks, who were AFLW players at the time,” Fletcher says.

“That had a massive impact on my footy journey, having someone to look up to that supported and believed in me.

“It made such a difference, I probably wouldn’t be here without that, but it made the dream so much more accessible.”

It was in her final year at school, playing both footy and netball that Fletcher decided to focus her talents on AFL and pursuing the idea of lining up alongside her coaches in GIANTS colours.

“I was losing the love for netball and at the same time experiencing that community in football that was so welcoming. I made the shift and haven’t looked back.”

One of the players that extended the arms most widely to her, was inaugural GIANTS AFLW captain Amanda Farrugia, who was back playing in the AFL Sydney Premier Division following her retirement from W at the end of the 2019 season.

“As far as a teammate goes, Fridge is one of the best you can get,” Fletcher says.

“Having her there to teach me and play alongside her in the midfield was so special, she was like another coach and a natural leader.

“To have her there to push me and assure me that I can do it made such a difference.”

Both Fletcher and Kavanagh were features of the GIANTS 2024 VFLW season, before individually making the move south to increase eyeballs on their game and the hopes of being selected onto an AFLW list.

Fletcher doesn’t know if it was vertigo at the speed of her ascent to the top level of footy, or nerves on her first day at GIANTS HQ ahead of her first VFLW season, but the drive to Olympic Park saw her both vomit and subsequently cause a minor car accident on her way in.

It’s only been up from there.

Fletcher found her way to the Kangaroos, landing on North Melbourne Werribee’s VFLW list. Kavanagh was signed to their AFLW side, as an injury replacement player, less than two years after her first game of footy.

“The move was extremely daunting," Kavanagh says,

“I was told about a week before I had to be down in Melbourne so I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare myself and if I did, I probably would have been a mess.

“I found Melbourne difficult, just being away from home, I didn’t feel myself improve much while I was there.”

Kavanagh wasn’t given a chance to line up at AFLW level through the Kangaroos premiership season, and it wasn’t until she returned home to the stability of her family that she fully understood the impact that the time at Arden Street had had on her football.

“All the stuff that I learnt down in Melbourne finally came out when I was comfortable and happy back at home and I really flourished with all the skills that I’d picked up from them,” Kavanagh says.

“The improvement I’ve had was insane. It definitely had its challenges but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

“Being down there all I wanted to do was come back home but I was told, ‘you’ve got more chance and opportunity being down there’, as there’s only two clubs in Sydney.

“I came back with the intent of just enjoying my club footy and being around my family again, but around April I got a call from Cam [Bernasconi] telling me that they were looking at me, and to just keep playing my best football and showing my weapons.

“A month later, I got another call, I had an AFLW contract with the GIANTS.”

Kavanagh was signed as a replacement for Chloe Dalton, a couple of weeks after, Fletcher was announced as the replacement for Pepa Randall.

“I was in a bit of shock [following the phone call],” Fletcher says of her mute response to the contract offer.

“I had to reassure them that I was really happy, it was just so unexpected.

“It still hasn’t really sunk in, coming into an AFLW club is so daunting but I was so lucky to have had that experience last year at VFLW level.

“Everyone made me feel so welcome last year as a train on, so to be able to come in now and line up as a peer next to all these girls I’ve looked up to for years now is incredible.”

For both girls, footy is intrinsically linked to the GIANTS AFLW team and the pathways it provided them as young athletes from Sydney’s west.

“There’s something so special about being able to share this experience with friends and family, and the clubs and coaches that pushed me to get here,” Fletcher says.

Kavanagh agrees.

“I’ve loved being able to play with a club that represents opportunity, as the GIANTS does,” she says.

“For me to able to represent my home state and to pull on the jersey in front of all my family and friends is amazing."

The GIANTS historic 10th season of AFLW is kicking off this August, and we don’t want you to miss a moment!

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