ACUTELY aware of where her strengths and improvements lay, Central District Women’s youngster Dakota Williams has a future plan. The South Australian State Under 18s Academy member has a unique personality with brutal honesty about what she has, and what she wants in her future. While so many her age are still weighing up their future options, Williams not only knows what she wants to achieve on the field, she also knows what she wants to do off it.

“Make it to the draft, perform really well there. Crows,” Williams said when asked of her footy goals for 2022. Her off-field goals were similarly straightforward.

“I want to get into uni. I want to go through human movement, I want to become an occupational therapist,” she said. So that’s pretty achievable for me, I do pretty well in school. Just be an occupational therapist with footy.”

Of course these goals have not come out of the blue, Williams can see the light at the end of the tunnel having made it into the State Academy and she has a plan with her footy.

“Yeah that (State Academy) was one of my long-term goals so I was so happy to achieve it,” Williams said. “I’ve got these little steps and basically each one of them gets me to AFLW.”

The steps are direct too, having risen through the pathway, Williams said she wanted to play at the highest level.

“I hope to make the League side, but I would still be happy to be in the Development if I needed to. But obviously I want to make the League side. From there I want to get into the draft, and preferably play for the Crows. I would not be mad if it was Port, just happy to be there.”

When asked about other potential teams, Williams thought the weather on the Gold Coast could be a good option.

“It’s just a nice place up there,” she said. “It could be a good reason for the family to move. “Get a good tan.”

For someone so determined to reach it to the top level, no doubt she would have harboured ambitions for footy through a lifelong passion, right? Wrong.

“I initially hated footy from the start. Didn’t see the point of it,” Williams said. “I was a very sporty kid growing up, did four sports. “But none of them were physical so obviously football was a bit of a change.”

The Central District talent said her love for footy occurred once she reached high school, and once she took it up, she could not let it go.

“In Year 7 I did a football carnival for my school,” Williams said. “A teacher approached me and was like ‘hey do you want to the team?’ I didn’t join his team, I joined another team. “Since then I’ve been playing for five years now. “I’ve made the Talent Shield also five years for Central District. “In 2019 I made the Crows Academies, in there it was a really good experience. “This year (2021) I just cracked the side for Central District.”

Williams regards herself as an aggressive midfielder. She has played in defence, but is not overly keen to be found too far forward, revealing another brutal honest self-evaluation.

“Hopefully midfield, that is my key position which is where I get played in every team,” Williams said. “Although I am a pretty good backliner, so happy with that as well. “I just don’t like the pressure of kicking goals so don’t put me up there.”

In 2022, Williams hopes to improve her marking and running patterns, which again she has figured it out through her own self-assessment.

“I feel like my marking is one of my weakest points,” Williams said. “I can mark, I just don’t trust myself to mark. “I like mid in the air I’ll shut my eyes. “Besides that I think my second efforts, I tire myself out pretty quickly because I run excessively when I really do not need to. So knowing when to use my energy.”

Naturally having being named in the State Under 18s Academy, Williams has more than her fair share of strengths.

“My strengths is my tackling. I’m very aggressive,” Williams said. “Also my speed, I’m quite quick. “I do like the chase down, and running with the ball.”

It is fair to say there are few who could assess their life on and off the field with such a direct self-appraisal. Williams has her goals set, and now with the season less than a month away, all eyes – and especially her own – will be on whether she can tick off her first goal of cracking into the Bulldogs’ League side.