Life of a footballer is a personal insight by Calder Cannons and Diamond Creek footballer Chloe Molloy. The Life of a Footballer series follows on from last year’s edition which saw Bendigo Pioneers’ midfielder Jamieson Sheahan provide us insights into the inner workings of a TAC Cup club. In 2017, Chloe Molloy has joined the AFL Draft Central team and will give readers an insight into how she juggles university studies with her football at Diamond Creek, and her pathway to follow her dream into the AFLW. You can find her last instalment here

Monday is the determiner of how the rest of your week is really going to plan out…

So I am back at university now, with a different timetable, and if Monday’s couldn’t get any worse, then hear this. I live an hour and a bit out of the city, so I have a lecture from 6pm-9pm (YES that says PM) at Holmesglen St Kilda campus. So please show me sympathy for that! I’m only kidding, although by 7pm I hit a wall, so the concentration level decreases slightly… And I am usually ready for bed by 8:30pm. But amongst all the complaining that I just rambled on about, the course is grouse and the night class is taken by Peter Rolfe, a Herald Sun journalist, which I think, is such a privilege.

I am back at Uni again the next day for a later class 2pm-5pm, then straight after class I have to get moving to head off to Diamond Creek training! And I am sure that everyone knows that around 5pm, is peak time traffic, and I love…. being…stuck…in…traffic.

But great news, Diamo are currently (hope it stays that way) sitting on top of the VFLW ladder, after good wins against Melbourne Uni, Eastern Devils and St Kilda. I am absolutely loving the Creekers, training is great. Scotty (Gowans) our coach works his backside off for us, feeding us statistics about ourselves, the team and also about our opponents. At Tuesday night trainings, we spend about 30 minutes reviewing our game, rating our game and also going through the teams ‘what we can work on’ and also ‘what we want to keep doing’ in our games.

Throw back to the matches that have passed – Round 8 we faced Melbourne Uni in what was a great game. It was a great 42-point win and gave us a real confidence boost. We had a ripper start and just continued from there, with Muggars only scoring a single point after the half. Reni Hicks played well for us, shutting down one of the Muggars key forwards. I was lucky enough to kick three goals for my team, just to put the icing on the cake for the hard work we had all done during the game.

Next match for us was the Eastern Devils, I wasn’t too sure what to expect, but I knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy game – no game is easy really! Despite their position on the ladder, it was always going to be a tough game. Personally for me it was tough, I was quiet heavily tagged all day by Pepa Randall and I had a quite game, despite managing to sneak a few touches in the last quarter.

We started off very sluggish, and lost the first quarter, but pulled ourselves into line after that and dominated the game from there on in. Kerryn Harrington had a good game for us, kicking a cheeky goal! She also did a lot of work from the backline, with the support from Lauren Morecroft. Emma Grant is also such a consistent player for us, and may go unnoticed at times, but that girl is always influencing our games. We managed to keep the Devils to just five goals, with our skip Steph Chiocci snagging two great goals. A big mention goes to Tanya Harrington, who despite being named in the backline, managed to have a set shot on goal and slot one through the big sticks! We finished with 10.12 (72), which collectively we weren’t happy with as our scoring efficiency wasn’t where we wanted it to be – but of course we were happy to take home the points!!

Round 10 saw us face St Kilda Sharks, who last time got away from us, so it was our time to make a statement to them. I was put into a different role having to tag Carlton AFLW player Bri Davey. I was nervous to say the least, having played forward or midfield for my whole football career (about 15 games) and then having to be thrown into the deep end to see how I could go in a different role. And hey – why not go all out and make me tag Bri Davey!

But, I was very keen because I really had nothing to lose and I looked at it as a great challenge, which it was and I took a lot out of it. And as Rob Chiocci said to me, “another bow to you arrow.” I had no snags that game, but I felt like I had played my role, as Bri didn’t have a huge impact on the game as she normally would. The contests were tough, but I’d help her up from them and she’d help me up, so I really enjoyed going up against such a great athlete.

The final quarter was a nail biter, but we got the win, 37-32, with Lisa Williams kicking the final goal with four minutes left in the game. Steph Chiocci played great for us; her efficiency with the ball was crucial in our win. Emma Grant went hard at it as always, and Katie Loynes had a great game for us, tackling like a machine, having plenty of the ball and stood out for us.

Next round is going to be AWESOME! (Really need to extend my vocabulary) We have Darebin on Saturday at Preston City Oval at 10am, which is going to be a cracker of a game! Such a rivalry between the two clubs, and really I’m looking forward to Saturday morning for another tough game of football.

Also I have to do this, huge shout out to Jacqui Graham, hell of a person and player. If you see her in my Instagram stories make sure you chuck her a follow! And if you don’t follow me, then you should @cchloemolloyy. She has been a great support and friend to me, and I think with the big things that are ahead for me it’s important to have someone like Jac to support me.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVg9ldll98Z/?taken-by=cchloemolloyy