{"id":36190,"date":"2018-06-19T21:27:32","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T11:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.afldraftcentral.com.au\/?p=36190"},"modified":"2021-11-12T06:25:47","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T20:25:47","slug":"from-local-footy-to-all-australian-in-12-months-macphersons-rapid-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2018\/06\/19\/from-local-footy-to-all-australian-in-12-months-macphersons-rapid-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"From local footy to All-Australian in 12 months: Macpherson’s rapid rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

FROM local footy to All-Australian defender in 12 months, Eastern Ranges\u2019 AFL Women\u2019s Academy member\u00a0Georgia Macpherson<\/strong>\u00a0can hardly believe how fast the past 18 months have flown by since joining the TAC Cup Girls club for the 2017 season. Originally from the Northern Territory, Macpherson made the move to Melbourne and has become a revelation in defence with her intercept marking and rebounding among her strengths in some impressive performances at both club and representative level.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started Auskick when I lived in Darwin,\u201d Macpherson said. \u201cA group of my mates from school just said come down and have a go so I did that. \u201cThen came down to Melbourne and then started playing for Chirnside Park \u2013 and again a group of my friends invited me down and ever since I\u2019ve been there. \u201cI\u2019ve played there for about five years or so and then Eastern Ranges invited me to come try out for them so this is my second year with them. I\u2019ve had heaps of opportunities throughout.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Macpherson, looking back on her journey, it is not too dissimilar to the meteoric rise of women\u2019s football as a whole, going from playing at a local level with Chirnside Park to finding herself running out on Etihad Stadium for Victoria.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was super quick,\u201d Macpherson said. \u201cI was just playing at local (footy) for five years and then Eastern Ranges came around and after that (I was) straight into Vic Metro and after that I was straight into All-Australian at Etihad Stadium. \u201cThat was pretty full-on and then I thought the season was over, so I went back and played with my local club for a couple of games, and then got invited to AFLW Academy so then that was another big camp in December. \u201cThen it followed on throughout this year and pre-season started again for Eastern Ranges, so there wasn\u2019t really a big break that I\u2019m used to at a local level. \u201cWithin the intensity it definitely wasn\u2019t, so it was a lot of a bigger workload on the body and coming into this year I was more aware of how much work I was going to have to put into this season just in 2018 so I\u2019m just like preparing myself throughout the year and knowing this is just the beginning so I have a long way to go still.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Eastern Ranges talent has certainly noticed the increased intensity in the competition, taking out the club best and fairest in 2016, and had another top three finish this year despite missing a game through concussion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s definitely gone up a lot,\u201d she said. \u201cThe standard\u2019s gone up, the professionalism has gone up, like not from only the players but the coaching staff. \u201cAs soon as pre-season came, the girls from last year noticed a difference and I feel like that\u2019s good because obviously you want to improve and get better. \u201cWe weren\u2019t the strongest competition out there last year and I feel like we definitely came out a lot stronger at the start of the season. \u201cI definitely see where Eastern Ranges are trying to come from last year. \u201cWe definitely want to get faster, fitter, stronger from last year. \u201cI feel like it was a bit harder than last year, pre-season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macpherson praised the work of her coaches in the various AFL Victoria organisations, with both Eastern Ranges and Vic Metro monitoring the workload on the players to ensure they do not overdo it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI [went] from Eastern Ranges and I\u2019m under them, so they take control of my workload and then I [went] to Vic Metro and they take care of my workload, so they will roster me on to train with them and \u2026 once they\u2019re done, I\u2019ll go to Box Hill and so on,\u201d the AFLW Academy member said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty good, they are aware that there other workloads that you have, and other commitments you have and they take that into consideration and they create the timeline for you and the training schedule and that\u2019s really helpful because otherwise us girls at our age, we\u2019d just work ourselves to the bone and crack at the end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge is keeping everyone happy from her studies to her work, but she is determined to make the most of an opportunity to play at the highest level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell I go to SEDA so I have it pretty good compared to most Year 12s but I do work part-time which is a bit of a struggle,\u201d Macpherson said. \u201cThere\u2019s training sessions that I\u2019m going to [at] all these different clubs, they train at different times and different places so it\u2019s been pretty hard keeping my boss happy because I keep changing shifts on them. \u201cI mean, you\u2019re dedicated to the sport so you\u2019ve got to go and put it first.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Macpherson said her intercept marking and reading of the play is what she prided herself on, she acknowledged there were areas she wanted to focus on to improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely want to build on my fitness and my muscles and all of that,\u201d she said. \u201cBut just my basic game knowledge and everything, just keep learning the game because it\u2019s only going to get faster and harder so keeping up with all that and just trying to get the best out of all of that and be the best I can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the AFL Women\u2019s draft is now only a few months away, Macpherson is focused on the National AFL Women\u2019s Under 18 Championships on the Gold Coast in July, after a successful performance against Vic Country on the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cAFL would be crazy if I make that level,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will be insane if I am good enough to make that level. \u201cJust even making VFL I\u2019m gobsmacked, and that I\u2019m actually there and have the opportunity to play. \u201cIf I know I\u2019m at the AFL level, I\u2019ll definitely apply for it at the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FROM local footy to All-Australian defender in 12 months, Eastern Ranges\u2019 AFL Women\u2019s Academy member\u00a0Georgia Macpherson\u00a0can hardly believe how fast the past 18 months have flown by since joining the TAC Cup Girls club for the 2017 season. Originally from the Northern Territory, Macpherson made the move to Melbourne and has become a revelation in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":31148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11589,18216,278,7950,8,137],"tags":[3343,46,2964,3415,11661,900,9539,5574,1880],"class_list":["post-36190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eastern-ranges","category-eastern-ranges-girls","category-feature-articles","category-nab-league-girls","category-news","category-womens","tag-aflw-academy","tag-eastern-ranges","tag-feature","tag-georgia-macpherson","tag-georgia-macpherson-feature","tag-interview","tag-nab-league-girls-features","tag-national-aflw-under-18-championships","tag-vic-metro"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87901,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36190\/revisions\/87901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}