{"id":72544,"date":"2020-09-24T16:29:49","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T06:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afl.draftcentral.localhost\/?p=72544"},"modified":"2020-09-24T18:06:20","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T08:06:20","slug":"passion-and-resilience-key-for-zbierski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2020\/09\/24\/passion-and-resilience-key-for-zbierski\/","title":{"rendered":"Passion and resilience key for Zbierski"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

NORTH Adelaide player Andie Zbierski<\/strong> has not always had it easy when it comes to football. Delayed beginnings, recurring injuries and four hour car trips are all parts of her journey, but she says her love for the game has made it all worthwhile.

\u201cI love the adrenaline rush I get from playing and how everyone gets around each other,\u201d Zbierski said. \u201cWhen one person drops their head, they\u2019ve got the whole team, support staff and coaches to pick them up. We\u2019re all together as a team and even after the game we all come together, it\u2019s such an inclusive environment.\u201d

Due to the limited opportunities to play women\u2019s football when she was younger, Zbierski only started competing four years ago.

\u201cI played my first year close to home at Roopena Football Club in Whyalla,\u201d she said. \u201cI was too old to continue playing there the next year, so I moved to Salisbury Football Club in Adelaide.\u201d

She played a key role in Salisbury\u2019s 2018 Division One Adelaide Women\u2019s Football League premiership. Given the lengths the Whyalla local went through to play in that side, no one could question her passion for playing the game.

\u201cI was driving down to Adelaide with my parents four hours there and four hours back every weekend,\u201d she said. \u201cThe drive got a bit boring and repetitive, but it\u2019s not a bad drive.\u201d

Zbierski says she has fantastic parents that are fully supportive of her football career.

\u201cDad has always taken me out to trainings and also down to one of the ovals near our house to just work on little things and get my skills up,\u201d she said. \u201cMum would always drive me down to Adelaide for my Salisbury and North Adelaide games. They\u2019re both really passionate about my football and they always encourage me to do the right thing.\u201d

As the only other family member with football experience, Zbierski says her dad is her biggest inspiration. He has supported all of her sporting ventures and offered her important personal guidance during matches.

\u201cEven in the earlier days when I played basketball and netball as well, my dad would always come out, support and give me little pointers,\u201d she said. \u201cI just take that a bit more to heart when dad\u2019s saying it because he knows me, he knows how I play and he knows exactly what he needs to say to me to get me to understand.\u201d

Zbierski started playing for North Adelaide\u2019s SANFLW side at the beginning of 2019, and she has learnt a lot about the senior style of football.

\u201cThey play very differently to country football, which is what I first got taught,\u201d she said. \u201cThe main differences are the structures and extra level of competitiveness. Even Division One compared to SANFLW is a big difference, but once you get the hang of it, it\u2019s really good.\u201d

Due to recurring injury issues, Zbierski\u2019s love for the game took a hit last year and she decided to take some time away from football after the 2019 SANFLW season.

\u201cI had a couple of back injuries, a few repetitive groin strains and some ankle injuries that took a toll on me,\u201d she said. \u201cI was beating myself up because I wasn\u2019t 100 per cent and I wasn\u2019t playing games. Not training for a few months and moving to a different club for fun definitely helped.\u201d

That new club was Division One\u2019s Old Ignatians. Zbierski moved there at the beginning of this year in the hope that she could play a full season away from senior level.

\u201cI moved to Adelaide at the end of 2019 to pursue my football career, and there\u2019s a few girls that live at a college with me who play for Old Ignatians,\u201d she said. \u201cI asked mum if I could move to that club because I didn\u2019t really play last year, it\u2019s not a proper season because of COVID and I want to go out and just play for fun to get my love back for the game.\u201d

While she didn\u2019t play any SANFLW games for North Adelaide this season, Zbierski continued to spend time at the club working with their strength and conditioning coaches to get her body right.

\u201cI did a lot of agility and changing direction training to help my ankles, and I did extra strength work through different circuits that didn\u2019t put anything too heavy on my back,\u201d she said. \u201cI also did some running with a focus on changing pace and slowing down.\u201d

Thanks to this extra effort put into looking after her body, Zbierski was able to play a full season of amateurs for the Old Ignatians in 2020. She played predominantly as a ruckman, a role that she has excelled in since her first year playing football.

\u201cBack home at Roopena I was pretty much the tallest one out there, so since then ruck has always been my preferred position,\u201d she said. \u201cI would say rucking is my biggest strength, along with my tackling.\u201d

Since she usually has a height advantage, Zbierski is strong defensively despite her lack of experience regarding how to play that role.

\u201cDown in Adelaide I am probably average height and I was chucked in the deep end playing centre-half back during a few games this year,\u201d she said. \u201cI haven\u2019t previously been taught much defensive craft, so I definitely need to work on that during pre-season.\u201d

Zbierski has a career plan that entails one more SANFLW season before moving up to the big league.

\u201cI hope to play a full season at SANFL level next year,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter that, I want to put my name down to be drafted for AFLW.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

For more AFLW and SANFLW news, follow Tom Cheesman on Twitter.<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NORTH Adelaide player Andie Zbierski has not always had it easy when it comes to football. Delayed beginnings, recurring injuries and four hour car trips are all parts of her journey, but she says her love for the game has made it all worthwhile. \u201cI love the adrenaline rush I get from playing and how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":72759,"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":[8,11601,7638,3130,137],"tags":[12270,6264,1369,8588,3578],"class_list":["post-72544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-north-adelaide","category-sanflw","category-south-australia","category-womens","tag-aflwu18s","tag-andie-zbierski","tag-north-adelaide","tag-sanfl-womens","tag-sanflw"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72544","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\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}