DYNAMIC Brisbane forward Greta Bodey finished last season with mixed emotions. The Lions had a strong season in which she led their goalkicking, but they were felled at the preliminary final, ending their pursuit for back-to-back flags.
Added to this, in just her third season of AFLW she was one of four Brisbane players named in the All-Australian squad, but was the only one not to make the team. It was a season of almosts.
This time around, Bodey has taken another step up in her development, kicking seven goals across the opening three rounds of the season and playing a dangerous role across half forward.
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But she won't tell you any of that. Instead, she deflects focus to her teammates' efforts and the successes of the Lions as a whole.
"I think the supply has been really good. I think I'm just getting on the end of some really great team goals," Bodey told womens.afl.
"We always talk about setting each other up and I've just happened to be, in the first three games, the one on the end of them. Same with Jesse (Wardlaw). But it's Hodder doing the work, it's Zimmie (Farquharson) doing the work, it's Ruby (Svarc) creating all that pressure. And then I just happen to be the lucky one on the end of them."
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The players' pay rise outlined in the most recent CBA agreement has allowed her to drop back to four days a week at her job outside footy where she works as a physiotherapist in a hospital. This is something Bodey does acknowledge as an external factor.
"I can't believe the difference dropping a day of work has made. Just like, less mental fatigue, less physical fatigue, more time for recovery. That one day has been a game changer for me."
According to teammate and friend Ally Anderson, Bodey is happy with "the little wins". One of those being finally breaking past the two-goal barrier that has hemmed her in since she joined the club.
"A couple of weeks ago, she was so frustrated," Anderson said.
"She said, 'I just keep getting two goals. I never get past two goals. I'm so annoyed at myself!' And then last week she kicked three goals and she's like 'I did it!', and she's just happy with those little wins."
But Bodey is more than just an impressive footballer to Anderson.
"She's my friend first, and teammate second. I just absolutely love her. She's really witty and you don't expect it, because sometimes she can be really quiet and then when you get to know her she just comes out with the most random things. She's just such a good human and a good teammate."
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Head coach Craig Starcevich agrees, noting that Bodey is "whip smart, with a wickedly dry sense of humour" that keeps him on his toes. But on the footy field, the skill and goal sense she immediately brought to the club thanks to a soccer background has only added to Brisbane's assets.
"She's got an innate understanding of our game. It's all about trying to find some space, set up and make the right decision at the right time, all that type of stuff. There's not much we've had to teach her about footy, which is interesting, the way she's picked up AFL," Starcevich said.
She is yet to reach her potential, however. The thing Starcevich says that can take Bodey to the next echelon? Self-confidence.
"Understanding of her status in the game I think is probably where you're going to see the growth, the self-belief, and I can see that she's never comfortable, that's for sure. But she's slowly gaining in her own self confidence that 'I'm okay at this game'."
Bodey still treads the line between a player who lacks confidence, and a humble person.
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"I still feel really new to the sport," she said when asked what is motivating her improvement. "Obviously we're always striving to be better."
That journey toward increased self-confidence takes another leap this weekend as Bodey's Lions face Narrm – the side to whom they lost last season's preliminary final. The forward has an interesting history against the Demons, having a chance in their last two home and away meetings to win the game after the siren, albeit from tough set shot positions.
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"I don't think about it. They've all been so far out that, like, it's not really expected that I'll get it," said Bodey of those chances that have just been out of her grasp.
"I think I'll just stay on the bench late in the game," she laughs.
And, as with all AFLW players, Bodey has her eyes firmly focused on team success.
"My main driver is team success. Win another premiership because that first one was unreal. Trying to do that again."
