GWS stalwart Rebecca Beeson has seen a lot happen at the Giants in her eight seasons at the club, but she gets to experience something new this season when she takes over captaincy duties from Alicia Eva.

But like the true professional she is, she is “just trying to be myself, so not a hell of a lot has changed” in taking on the role.

“I’ll probably have to do a few more events like this though, and a few more panels and things,” she said. “But it’s obviously pretty special, but yeah, just trying to be myself. That’s the most important thing for me is just being authentic.”

She acknowledged that she is filling pretty big shoes in taking over from a club legend like Eva, but Beeson plans to utilise Eva’s experience to help her in her captaincy.

“It’s pretty big shoes to fill, not going to lie,” she said. “Alicia is an amazing leader for us, and obviously she’s still at the club and she’s a really good mate of mine. So there’ll be points where I lean on her as well, because I really respect her opinion. But It’s important for me I guess not try and be Alicia, just try and be myself, so that’s probably the biggest thing for me is just sort of continuing on as just being me and obviously growing along the way.”

It has been a tough few years for Beeson with injuries, but she is very happy to be back consistently playing footy.

“It was a bit of a rough time for me, but I’ve gotten to a stage where I don’t really think about the injuries and stuff anymore,” she said. “So yeah, super grateful to be healthy and to be playing footy consistently.”

It has also been a tough few years for her club, but Beeson says things are building.

“I think, look we’ve got a very young list, I think we’ve got the youngest list in the comp and we’ve got nine new girls on the list this year who are new to our program,” she said. “So for us it’s just about learning a system.

“We’re a young team trying to play a fast brand of football. So it’s going to take a little bit of time. But we’ve got the right people. We’ve got a great group of girls and the biggest thing is that we’re constantly learning and trying to improve.”

Beeson said that the speed of the Giants should really keep fans excited this season.

“I think we’re going to try and play a really fast brand of footy. I think we don’t want to be playing in congestion. So we’re going to try and get the footy into space and let our runners do the work. So hopefully we’re a pretty entertaining team to watch this year.”

Although the wins did not come in either the recent match simulation or practise match, Beeson said that the Giants still learnt some crucial lessons.

“We played two really strong teams in Sydney and North Melbourne who I suspect are going to be quite strong this year,” she said. “So it’s actually a blessing to play stronger teams in the comp in your practice matches because they put you under pressure, they put your system under pressure.

“So I think the biggest thing for us is sticking to our system, trying to play the way we want to play, and when we do, we look back at the football team and we move the footy really well. So I guess execution of our system is the biggest thing for us.”

But in the end when it comes down to it, what Beeson said was the ultimate goal for the season was a pretty simple one.

“I think the goal is to keep improving on previous seasons,” she said.

“I know we’ve got a number of new girls are on the list. so it’s about fine tuning our system just improving, improving year on year is what we’re after.”