TO SAY it has been a whirlwind 12 months for new Gold Coast skipper Tara Bohanna would be an understatement.

In the space of about 12 to 18 months, she’s gone from being overlooked at the draft for the sixth time in a row to now being the Suns skipper in only her second season at the club.

She has certainly loved being at the Suns.

“I’ve absolutely loved it. It’s a fair change moving up from Melbourne, it’s a fair footy bubble, so I just tried to take the opportunity with two hands and just give it my all I suppose, coming in at the age I do, yeah you take any opportunity you can, so I was pretty grateful to be given the opportunity I did.”

She certainly was not expecting to land the role of captain.

“Obviously we needed a new captain but I guess I wasn’t always thinking it would go the way it did but super honoured that it did.”

Despite just missing out on finals, Bohanna was positive about how season six went for her side.

“I think it was a really good step up and improvement. As you say we weren’t far off making finals and I think there were a couple of games that you know were pretty close that could have gone either way. So I think it’s really exciting leading into this season, which is still obviously the same year, we can continue building on those improvements we made and hopefully push towards that finals campaign again.”

In season 6 she and fellow Suns forward Sarah Perkins had created quite the imposing forward duo.

Now that Perkins is at Hawthorn they need someone to fill that void, but Bohanna says they’ve got a few options.

“We’ve got Jacqui Dupuy, she was kind of spending half time with forward and ruck last year and she’ll kind of do a bit the same this year but I think she’s a really strong body, a strong target that we have which is really exciting and so hopefully she’ll get a bit more time.

“We’ve also got Giselle Davies training in there which is cool, so she’s come from the backline to the forward line, so she’s a young developing forward. But we’re probably also looking a little bit smaller I suppose then this year, so hopefully a little bit more zippy, hopefully we’ll have Jamie Stanton in there that’s so knowledgeable about the game, knows where to be, Courtney Jones as well. So it’s pretty exciting, it’ll look a bit different but at the same time be just as competitive.”

There are plenty of new faces at the Suns this season, who have all settled in well said Bohanna.

“I think everyone’s settled in really well. I suppose again that quick turnaround they kind of had to come in and get straight into training has been a fair step up for all of them. In terms of impressing us they’re all been pretty great. Georgia Clayden’s been doing really well in defence and Gabby [Biedenweg-Webster] running off half back, and then Courtney Jones coming up from Carlton has been another addition in terms of just knowledge. And then we’ve got Ash Atkins from West Coast as well who’s come in again with just experience and then the young ones as well. Obviously we won’t be seeing Alana Gee but they’ve all really impressed so it’s been great.”