{"id":58318,"date":"2019-09-24T15:22:43","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T05:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afl.draftcentral.localhost\/?p=58318"},"modified":"2021-01-12T17:15:35","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T07:15:35","slug":"a-new-breed-of-footballing-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2019\/09\/24\/a-new-breed-of-footballing-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"A new Breed of footballing talent"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITH plenty of skill and talent on show throughout a relatively short career so far, Darwin youngster Mattea Breed<\/a><\/strong>‘s journey is one of remarkable achievements.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old has found her calling since picking up the footy in her early teens, making a name for herself in the Northern Territory as a tough player and effective ball user, with efficiency and physicality to boot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started playing after I watched one of my cousins play footy in a local league, so I started midway through Under 15s and played maybe four or five games for the season, went on and did Under 18s for I think two years and it\u2019s my third year this year, but moved up after the Christmas break to the premier league in the NTFL comp,\u201d Breed said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my first year of 18s I went away and did Thunder, got selected for Allies but during the training for that I had a lateral ligament in my knee, like I strained it so I couldn\u2019t go away. So I missed out on that, didn\u2019t do it the next year because I wanted to focus on school and then this is my third year now and I\u2019m doing it, like this is the first time I\u2019ve come to Allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

While her knee injury was not serious, it put a real spanner in the works for the young utility who had to make the difficult and selfless decision to pull out of the Central Allies in 2017. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t really major, it was just because it was like – it was maybe three weeks out before I was going away but the physio was (saying) about 4-6 weeks of recovery. So it was sort of like oh I\u2019ll do that, there was no point going away if I\u2019m not 100 per cent because that was just taking it away from somebody else. It was easy but it was just sort of like mentally I was like, that was crap, because I just did all of that for pretty much nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s sort of good I can at least get here before my time is up I suppose, because I\u2019m top-age now, so yeah, at least I got to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite being dealt her fair share of setbacks with injury and schooling keeping her out of AFLW Championships, Breed has just as many high points with a fairly decorated resume despite her age. Her impressive resume boasts NTFL Under 18 Girls Best and Fairest awards in 2016\/17 and 2017\/8, while a boost to the 2018\/19 NTFL Premier League lead her to a third consecutive AFLW Championship selection. Breed also got the call-up to NT Thunder participating in VFL Women\u2019s. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love it, I love premier league because I get along with a lot of the women really well, so that was good, to kind of step up a level to play that and then to go into that competition and play against a lot of them who I\u2019m playing in the VFLW with \u2026 but now I\u2019m doing that, a lot of the women I played against I\u2019m now playing with.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for her VFLW debut, Breed said knowing as many players as she did from NTFL made the transition to Thunder all the more rewarding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was good, that was like \u2026 the encouragement and all the girls getting around, because like I said I played against them, they all knew who I was and I think they thought it was really special because I\u2019ve gone all the way through the programs,\u201d Breed said. \u201cTo be at that level after going through the programs, like yeah this is the outcome that we want, so yeah like pretty special and significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

While NTFL has the physicality, Breed says the consistency and skill level of VFLW means she had to kick it up a notch both on the footy field and on the training track to keep up with the play. <\/p>\n

\u201cI like the skill level, you get to showcase what you\u2019re good at a lot more because you have your teammates that do have skills as well to sort of assist with that. I think just the fitness aspect of it I\u2019m like \u2018ooooh god, I\u2019ve gotta get fit!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The fierce competitor shows plenty of grit and determination on the field, using her size and physicality to impose herself on the contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I just – when I can impact the play, I do. Like I sort of just go in and – not so much win hard ball, I think even though I don\u2019t play a defensive position my defence and my tackles and stuff is good, and taking the marks in the packs, sort of getting it out of defence even though I play midfield and forwards but I think yeah sort of clearing it I suppose, being a bigger body,\u201d Breed said. \u201cI think it just like – I\u2019m just used to doing it now, it\u2019s just something – like if I didn\u2019t do it, I don\u2019t really know what else I\u2019d do. It\u2019s just something I\u2019m used to having in my schedule, training and playing and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the AFL Women\u2019s Draft coming up, Breed says that while the ultimate goal is to be drafted she\u2019s not focusing too much on the future, with plenty of support from family and friends no matter what happens. <\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely my parents, my dad is so passionate about it sometimes he\u2019s really hard on me about it, but my mum is so supportive of it whatever my decision is, so I think those two are the biggest influence I guess and I\u2019m just trying to make them proud I suppose.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITH plenty of skill and talent on show throughout a relatively short career so far, Darwin youngster Mattea Breed‘s journey is one of remarkable achievements. The 18-year-old has found her calling since picking up the footy in her early teens, making a name for herself in the Northern Territory as a tough player and effective […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":58323,"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":[3115,5603,278,7232,11602,3121,137],"tags":[7463,9909,9912,9910,9911,11632,1378,11631],"class_list":["post-58318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aflw","category-aflw-national-championships","category-feature-articles","category-northern-territory","category-norwood","category-vflw","category-womens","tag-mattea-breed","tag-mattea-breed-aflw-features","tag-mattea-breed-central-allies","tag-mattea-breed-northern-territory","tag-mattea-breed-nt-thunder","tag-northern-territory-features","tag-norwood","tag-south-australia-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58318","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\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}