{"id":37907,"date":"2018-07-25T19:04:06","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T08:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.afldraftcentral.com.au\/?p=37907"},"modified":"2018-07-25T19:04:54","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T08:04:54","slug":"garstones-football-call-the-best-decision-ever-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2018\/07\/25\/garstones-football-call-the-best-decision-ever-made\/","title":{"rendered":"Garstone’s football call the “best decision ever made”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WESTERN Australia (WA) representative,\u00a0Sarah Garstone\u00a0<\/b>spent her junior career playing state netball and building up a promising career in that sport.<\/p>\n

But after being asked to give football a go, she traded in the netball skirt for the football shorts, allowing her to discover a love of Aussie Rules that will stay with her forever.<\/p>\n

When playing both sports, Garstone admits it was challenging and started to realise the negatives of being a dual-sport athlete. From training on Sunday mornings to rushing straight to a football game in the afternoon, the 18 year-old started becoming extremely tired, and injured. Thankfully, her mum helped her to make one of the hardest decisions she\u2019s ever made.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back now, I don\u2019t really understand how it was so hard because I love football so much,\u201d Garstone said. \u201cBecause I was putting so much into footy and so much into netball, towards the end of the season, I was starting to get a bit injured. \u201cI just was absolutely wrecked. \u201cThen my mum was like \u2018no more two sports! You have to pick one!\u2019. But (it was the) best decision I ever made but so glad I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AFL Women\u2019s competition was created in the same year as she made this decision, which ultimately swayed her to devote all her time to Aussie Rules. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just decided that it was just so exciting that there was somewhere to go with footy, and netball is so competitive,\u201d Garstone said. \u201cI decided that football would have better opportunities for me so I went with football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garstone has grasped her opportunities in football with both hands, as she was selected to represent WA in the AFL Women\u2019s Under 18 Championships. She admits that it\u2019s not only the footy side of things that she loves about the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got selected, it was just the most amazing feeling ever,\u201d the 18 year-old said. \u201cI\u2019m just so honoured. \u201cAll my friends now are all footy friends and so many people I\u2019ve met are so much more like me as well. \u201cI\u2019ve just connected with football coaches so much more as well. \u201cBecause I was always a rough netballer, netball coaches always used to say \u2018you need to be more composed!\u2019 but with football, they\u2019re like \u2018go, go! Be crazy!\u2019 \u201cIt\u2019s sort of expressed my best qualities, I love that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garstone now gets to express her best qualities in the heart of Western Australian football, as she has made the move from her little country town, Gingin, to Perth. In Gingin, the WA representative played Auskick with the boys and admits that some parents had some reservations about her skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I did Auskick and stuff, it was quite normal,\u201d Garstone said. \u201cUp until I was in Under 9s, there was only two girls in my team, me and two other girls. \u201cA few of the mums used to get mad because I was better than their sons. \u201cThey would just get really mad and be like \u2018she\u2019s not allowed to play!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, it was a fun town to live in but as she got older, Garstone admits that she faced some challenges living so far out.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeading into this\u00a0 competition (AFL Women\u2019s Under 18 Championships), we started in November and every single day I\u2019d need to be in Perth,\u201d she said. \u201cLast year when I was in Year 12, from school, I\u2019d have two hours to wait for training and I would have nowhere to go, I\u2019d have to go to a friend\u2019s house. \u201cThere was no other option so it was definitely the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Living in Perth has not only been more convenient, but it has inspired Garstone to chase her dream of playing AFLW. Prior to the AFL Women\u2019s Under 18 Championships, she wanted to ensure that she made the most of her last year representing her state.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously my dream is AFLW,\u201d Garstone said. \u201cThinking about that just makes me so excited, it just makes me so happy. \u201cI just want to work as hard as I possibly can to get there really. \u201cBecause this is my last year (of Under 18s), I just want to make every moment count really. \u201cThere\u2019s only 15 minute quarters and I just want to do as much as I can and just show as much as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Garstone is living in Perth with her grandma and making coffees for a living. But after having completed a successful Under 18s tournament and playing some solid footy with Claremont in the Western Australia Women\u2019s Football League (WAWFL), the future looks bright for the talented teenager.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WESTERN Australia (WA) representative,\u00a0Sarah Garstone\u00a0spent her junior career playing state netball and building up a promising career in that sport. But after being asked to give football a go, she traded in the netball skirt for the football shorts, allowing her to discover a love of Aussie Rules that will stay with her forever. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":37925,"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":[5603,8,137],"tags":[6165,157,553,4821,5958],"class_list":["post-37907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aflw-national-championships","category-news","category-womens","tag-afl-womens-under-18-championhsips","tag-aflw","tag-claremont","tag-sarah-garstone","tag-western-australia-womens-football-league"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37907","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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}