LIKE many fellow footballers, Darebin defender Karly McNiece has faced serious injury throughout her career, but has come back stronger and more motivated than ever.

The 24 year old suffered a knee injury just as she was coming into senior footy, but a return to the game she loves is what kept her motivated through the year long recovery.

“I’m glad to say it’s pretty far behind now,” McNiece said.  

“It still feels ages ago now, but sort of when I was 19/20, I had knee surgery. I had a year out of the game, which was really hard, and I think that’s what motivated me because I just felt that, not even exaggerating, life was just better when I was playing footy.

“When I was around at Darebin, when I was around my mates, and just the exercise and the fun of playing football, after being away from it, I figured out was just life was better in it. “I think that was pretty motivating to get back into it and then getting back to VFLW level I think it was just wanting to see how far I could take it now that I was able to do everything that my body needed to do to. Then I was keen get to get back to see how far I could push and how good I could get.”

Her introduction into footy, like many other Australians, came via family.

“I suppose I didn’t really have a choice,” she said when asked about what made her fall in love with the code.

“I started playing at the Preston Bullants, my dad was president there and my parents helped found the footy club so I was just spending every Sunday at a footy club all day, and then all my mates were playing so it was sort of the next step and then came down to the Falcons and fell in love with footy all over again with the culture and the people.”

McNiece played juniors with the boys down at the Bullants, before moving across to the Falcons at about the age of 15 and has stayed there since. She also played TAC Cup (now known as Coates Talent League) and Vic Metro as an 18 year-old.

Word of mouth, and some very convincing school mates, is how McNiece found herself at Darebin.

“If you ask a lot of the girls back in the day it’s just word of mouth,” McNiece said. “I went to school with one of the other players, Shannon Egan and one of our forwards coaches Elise Casamento, so we all went to school together and I think I played school footy and they were sort of like ‘you should come play at Darebin’.

“I didn’t have a good sense of girls footy, when I left playing with the boys, so to hear that there was something else to move onto I was like ‘ooh I might give it a go’ and I think they were just happy to get girls down and they just got me into it.”

Although now known as a defender, that was not always the case for McNiece.

“I did have a bit of a stint on the wing, but getting to that higher level I don’t think I have quite the running capacity to stick it out at a high pace the whole game. I do like a bit of a stint here and there,” she said.

“I’m pretty naturally defensive. I think that the advantage of being able to sit off one end and read the flight of the ball is probably where my strengths lie and sort of being able to call shots from further away can help the whole team move to where we need to be positionally I think is probably where I can be most helpful to the team.”

Although she wants to make it to the next level, she is still thinking bigger picture in terms of her goals.

“Yeah absolutely, I think that is the goal,” McNiece said. “I think maybe the overall goal is to play the best footy I can and play the best role in this team that I can, but absolutely definitely got aspirations to play at the highest level.”