Former Corowa-Rutherglen netballer Ruby Svarc to start AFLW career at Brisbane

The former Corowa-Rutherglen netballer was taken with pick 38 by Brisbane in the AFLW draft on Tuesday night and will join older sister, Cathy, who was selected by the Lions last year.

AFLW draft prospects have the option of nominating which state they would prefer to play in and Svarc, 27, felt Queensland would be her best bet, despite not getting to take the field this year with the VFLW season cancelled due to COVID-19.

She chose correctly.

"Obviously my sister is up there too and I thought why not give Queensland a crack," Svarc said.

"I was pretty anxious the whole day and the few days leading up to it, but especially Tuesday afternoon.

"It was good once it all happened and I'm finally starting to calm down a bit now."

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Svarc played mostly on a wing at Essendon and will look to use her speed on the outside to her advantage at the Lions.

Growing up at Corowa, Svarc spent plenty of time with her sister on the netball court before their career paths took them to different parts of the country.

However, their football journeys have been almost identical with Ruby starting at community level in Melbourne three years ago as Cathy found a club in Brisbane.

Cathy was drafted to the Lions after two seasons with QAFLW outfit Willston Grange, while Ruby would have been entering her second campaign with Essendon before earning an AFLW opportunity.

"The fact I'm not just playing AFLW, but alongside Cathy is pretty exciting," Svarc said.

"We've always been talking about how one day we're going to be on the same team. It's happened a lot sooner than we thought, so I'm pretty stoked.

"I've been in Melbourne for a few years now and I'll be moving to Queensland pretty quickly because I'll need to do (two weeks of) hotel quarantine up there.

"I'm working in Melbourne, but we've obviously been working remotely for a while, so the plan is to move up there and work out a plan how I can continue to do that."

Svarc said she's been blow away by the support from back home since the draft.

"I've received a lot of messages in the last 24 hours and I haven't been able to get back to everyone. The support has been so overwhelming," she said.

"My parents are still in Corowa and I was hoping to be able to go home, but I don't think I can with the current restrictions, so I think it will be straight to Queensland for me.

"Cathy actually just rented out her spare room (laughs). It would have been perfect, but I've been speaking to her and a few other people and it looks like there's a few spare rooms floating around.

"I'm so thankful for the opportunity with the Lions and I'm really keen to get up there and get settled in."

Svarc is set to start pre-season with her new club in early November.