IT wasn't until about a year before she was drafted that Holbrook's Alyce Parker decided it was time to sink or swim in footy.
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The Greater Western Sydney Giants midfielder was a typical farm kid, trying her hand at any sport she could and mostly at a high level.
But it was a heart-to-heart with former NSW/ACT under-18s coach and current Giants teammate Alicia Eva that convinced her to choose AFLW.
"Once she took over the coaching, she opened me up to the opportunity I had in front of me," the 19-year-old said.
"Prior to that I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, whether I wanted to stop my swimming, netball and tennis.
"But someone of that calibre to open up your eyes to how amazing the opportunity is, it's exactly why I made that decision to have a go of this.
"I stopped the other sports, I loved my football too much and wanted to take it to another level."
"I did have a challenge narrowing it down to one. From the age of 15 onwards I was constantly told you need to pick one, you can't do all of them at a high level."
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Those in the know will tell you she's made the right choice.
Parker is renowned for winning the hard ball and bursting her way through packs after a strong debut AFLW season last year.
She is a two-time under-18 AFLW All Australian and was named All Australian captain at the 2018 under-18 championships.
Parker said Saturday's AFLW clash with Richmond at Wagga's Robertson Oval will be a memorable day, with her old football and netball teammates at Holbrook already booking a bus to watch her play.
"This weekend is going to be special. I never expected to be play an AFLW game in my home region, it's incredible," she said.
"It'll be amazing for me to have the people that have supported me along the way there.
"Being my second year in the AFLW, I feel like I've developed a huge amount in 12 months. I get asked a lot about my focus going into year two and it's developing my football, but also my leadership."
Parker says she does wonder how far she could have gone in the pool.
"I was in the elite training squad in Wodonga, the national training squad for two years," she said.
"In my final year swimming at 15, I was hoping to quality for nationals in the 50m freestyle and missed the time by a touch.
"I had to sit down and work out whether I wanted to do a whole another year of training to make nationals, or is there something else I want to explore? That was a big eye opener for me.
"After I missed the time I had a meeting with my coach and mum and dad, and my coach said if I wanted to continue and make nationals, I had to pick it up from eight session a week to to ten.
"Living an hour away from the pool made that too difficult."
