{"id":39338,"date":"2018-08-28T20:02:35","date_gmt":"2018-08-28T10:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.afldraftcentral.com.au\/?p=39338"},"modified":"2020-04-23T06:59:38","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T20:59:38","slug":"straight-into-state-madison-bennetts-incredible-transition-into-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2018\/08\/28\/straight-into-state-madison-bennetts-incredible-transition-into-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Straight into state; Madison Bennett\u2019s incredible transition into football"},"content":{"rendered":"

JUST last year, <\/span>Madison Bennett <\/b>gave up a promising career in soccer and discovered her passion for Australian Rules football. <\/span><\/p>\n

She saw a link for the South Australia Under 18 trials and tried out, having never played competitive football before. Not only had she never played competitive football before, but Bennett was not even aware that there was a women\u2019s Australian Rules league. Since she found out, she has discovered a passion for a new sport that does not look like it will die down anytime soon. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realise there was a women\u2019s league at all so as soon as I found out there was a women\u2019s league, I knew footy was my passion and I went straight to it,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cI did love soccer, I played in the state team. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know, as soon as I started playing footy, I just found that passion was a lot bigger because I\u2019ve always had a passion for sport and football was a great environment. \u201cIt\u2019s an uncommon sport for girls so I think the passion for it is huge and I like that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In her first year of playing football, Bennett was successful in making the South Australian and Central Allies Under 18 sides, and played her first football game in one of the most daunting environments imaginable. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy first ever state game was pretty much my first game,\u201d the 19 year-old said. \u201cIt was straight into it with a very wide talent so I\u2019ve come a long way since then. \u201cI knew it was a state team and that had a lot of competition and talent around me so I took that on board and I just did what I could.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bennett also plays for South Adelaide in the South Australia National Football League (SANFL) Women\u2019s competition and Christies Beach in the South Australian Women\u2019s Football League (SAWFL). While playing in these leagues, the 19 year-old believed she has improved and benefitted from the experience and advice from other players. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like playing SANFLW was a good opportunity because it\u2019s that next step higher than local level,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cI really enjoyed playing against the older women and getting a lot of feedback from them and improving. \u201cI think I improved in my kicking, like if you watch my first ever state game from a SANFLW game now, I think there\u2019s a big improvement there so I got to learn off the girls and I\u2019m really fortunate to get the opportunity to do it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Before, Bennett represented her state in soccer, having played since she was a teenager. She has been awarded a Player of the Tournament award before at a tournament in Sydney, but now has her sights set on achieving new heights in Australian Rules. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs an individual, I would love to get drafted,\u201d Bennett said. \u201cEver since I\u2019ve started playing footy, it has been my goal. \u201cI have looked up to the Adelaide Crows and seeing them and all the other teams, I\u2019ve watched their games and it\u2019d be an amazing feeling to represent one of those teams one day. \u201cI\u2019m not sure when that time will come but hopefully in my coming years, I\u2019ll be able to play for one of those AFLW teams.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to achieve this goal, Bennett has been keeping a close eye on some of the star players of the AFL Women\u2019s competition. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>Erin Phillips<\/b> does stand out really for me,\u201d the 19 year-old said. \u201c<\/span>Chelsea Randall<\/b>, even though I don\u2019t play her position, her aggression towards the ball has really driven me to have more aggression to tackle the player and to keep going. \u201c<\/span>Daisy Pearce<\/b>, because she\u2019s quite small and I\u2019m really small, I look up to her and go if she can do it, I can do it too.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JUST last year, Madison Bennett gave up a promising career in soccer and discovered her passion for Australian Rules football. She saw a link for the South Australia Under 18 trials and tried out, having never played competitive football before. Not only had she never played competitive football before, but Bennett was not even aware […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":37585,"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":[5603,278,8,11603,3130,137],"tags":[5904,3045,5994,3014,2999,5923,3578,6453,1714,11631],"class_list":["post-39338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aflw-national-championships","category-feature-articles","category-news","category-south-adelaide","category-south-australia","category-womens","tag-central-allies","tag-chelsea-randall","tag-christies-beach","tag-daisy-pearce","tag-erin-phillips","tag-madison-bennett","tag-sanflw","tag-sawfl","tag-south-adelaide","tag-south-australia-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39338","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=39338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}