MOVING across the country as big as Australia to chase your dreams at a young is not always easy, but that is exactly what young West Coast Fever star Jordan Cransberg had to do to achieve her dreams in netball.

Originally from Victoria, she was given an opportunity to be a training partner at the Melbourne Vixens and then the West Coast Fever, before getting her first full contract at the Fever this season.

Cransberg said that getting the full contract was “pretty special.”

“I still sort of pinch myself and don’t really realise that I do,” she said. “I think I was a training partner for so long that I just got used to that role, but finally getting a contract, it was so, so special.”

She also said that moving across the country at such a young age – which she did so in her early 20s – was “to be honest, it was a big decision at the time, but once I did it, it became easy.”

“I think moving to Perth, a lot of my family’s already here so I had so much support already and I had a good family base in Perth,” she said. “I think that made the transition a lot easier. The team was so, so welcoming and I really like that made it a lot easier as well.

“I think the difficult part was I sort of moved my uni across and I felt like I had to start again after I’d sort of established myself at uni for about six years. I had a really good support base at uni. That was probably the most difficult thing, was just figuring out a whole new system, how it all works and being the new one.”

Cransberg has come a long way from her early days in the sport.

A self described “latecomer to netball”, she only started playing the sport at age 13, and not making her first state team until her bottom age year of under 19s.

“I grew up playing basketball and then sort of saw my older sister play netball and me and my twin sister were basically just like ‘we have to give this a go’.

She has also had to deal with an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury before getting her first training partner opportunity with the Melbourne Vixens and then the Fever.

Cransberg actually started her career as a goal attack who played a bit of centre, but when she made her first state team the coaches decided she was going to be a full time mid courter.

Although her older sister just played the sport for fun, things progressed very differently for Cransberg and her twin sister Zoe, who is also a training partner at the Fever.

She described being able to go through the netball pathway with her sister as “pretty special”.

“Not a lot of people get to do that with their best friend, the person they know pretty much the best and who knows you the best as well,” Cransberg said. “I think it’s a pretty special thing to be able to play with Zoe and I think we have a pretty good connection on court so it’s always been really really fun to be able to get an opportunity to play with each other.

“I guess it’s good having that rock just to ride the highs and lows with and have someone to lean on if it’s been hard. I think the year that I had injury was really hard for me but it was always good to have her and inversely, when she had the same injury, she had me to lean on with that sort of thing.”

Life is also still pretty busy off-field for Cransberg. Taking a year off her medicine degree this year, she is still doing a research project and getting involved with a volunteering program with the Children’s Hospital in Perth.

“I think it’ll be good just to get around that sort of the hospital environment still, but not have the pressure of studying all the time and being at placement if I’m not at netball.  But normally very, very busy and probably in the next few years that will become busy again as I start studying again.”

When asked what her ultimate career goal is, Cransberg’s answer was both unsurprising yet still wholesome.

“I think ultimate goal is to play for the Diamonds one day,” she said. “I think probably the ultimate, ultimate goal is to play for the Diamonds one day with my twin sister. That would be like the dream come true.”