PLUCKED out of the Gippsland Power talent program, when Tyla Hanks arrived at AFLW level the fitness gap between her and the hardened athletes already in the program was stark.

Enter: Paxy Paxman.

"My first off season she said, '6am, I run at the Tan every week, then I come in and do gym, anyone that wants to come is welcome'. I lived in Pakenham at the time, and I was like, 'Actually, I need to do that'," Hanks told AFL.com.au.

Get two NAB AFLW qualifying final games for the price of one at Saturday’s Ikon Park double-header! Geelong takes on Melbourne, before North Melbourne hosts Carlton. All spectators need a ticket - adults $15, kids under 15 free. Get your tickets here 

"Paxy is clearly the fittest in the team, I need to get fitter, I'm so far behind in that sense. So yeah, I'd drive in and try to be there at six o'clock, and if you miss six o'clock then Paxy was gone. But there was a little group of us which was great."

The catch, however, was that running sessions with Paxy don't necessarily mean you're running alongside Paxy.

"I'd see Paxy for the first two minutes. We'd start at the clock and I'd just try. And every time I went, I just thought I was going to try and see Paxy for a bit longer. And then by the time we got to Anderson Street Hill, I'd pretty much lost her," Hanks laughed.

It's a story captain Kate Hore still chuckles about, too.

"She'd meet her there, and 'Hanksy' would say, 'All right, let's go', and Paxy would just run off, and she wouldn't even see her for the next half an hour, and then she'd just see her at the finish line," Hore said.

"But she just kept showing up. She kept going because she wanted to get better and she wanted to close that gap between her and Paxy. The easy thing to do would be like, 'No, I'll just run with someone else' or 'I'll just do my own session', but it just goes to show her mindset. She wanted to test herself against the best and close that gap.

"It is a pretty funny story, though."

It kickstarted a period of rapid development for Hanks. During the COVID lockdowns in 2020, she saw the downtime as an opportunity to become meticulous about fitness, nutrition, and her mindset.

A promise to the club before the off season between 2020 and 2021 that she would hit all her running paces was one that she kept. She engaged a family friend who was a nutritionist to get those things right. Speaking to a psychologist about performance mindset was also important – something Hanks didn't really allocate much time toward during the rough and tumble of regular life. But with everything locked down, suddenly time could be spent doing these things.

This coincided with a shift in earnest to the midfield.

"I had a bit of a different role, playing more as a mid. Previously, my first two years, I was a mid-forward and if I came into the mid, I was a bit of a tagger. So, I had to learn good habits through earning my spot as a mid, I didn't get to just come in and get a spot on the team and learn on the go," Hanks explained.

"I felt like I had to really earn and prove that I could play in there. 2021 was a good year, but it just worked out. I think you add those little things and they're like little blocks. Kate says they're little building blocks that you just put as your foundation… they're all the little things you just keep adding, but you can't do it without a foundation."

This is something Hanks does regularly, reflecting on things she's been taught by people she respects. Clearly Hore has been a huge influence on not just her footy, but her life more broadly, so too Daisy Pearce, and Paxy.

It's evidence of her willingness not only to take on feedback and guidance, but to genuinely analyse and understand what's being shared. That's not to say she wasn't initially a little awestruck by Pearce, however, arriving at the club as a teenager.

"Early days I was starstruck," Hanks confessed.

"She talked to me and I was like, 'Oh my god, she's asking me what I think', but then it was actually something that became really normal and that was really cool… Early days I was probably just naturally quiet, but Daisy was so good at just seeing it in you and then pulling it out of you," Hanks explained.

Now at 25, she has harnessed those things, drawn out by compassionate leaders, to become Melbourne's vice-captain, and widely deemed one of the best midfielders in the AFLW.

"At heart, I am a kid that loved footy," Hanks said.

"My family grew up around local footy clubs. I think about my childhood, it was really central around football, and I was a big Essendon fan, so I'd be at all the Essendon games with my dad, fully kitted out. I had a footy with me everywhere I went."

There is a sense of fate around Hanks bringing up game No.100 this week, becoming the youngest player to do so. It's against her old coach Mick Stinear for the first time, and junior teammate Nina Morrison will bring up game No.75 as a direct opponent in the middle.

"I've had good battles with Nina over the years. She's fun, she's complimentary as well, if you do something good, she's like 'Oh, that was good'," Hanks said.

The only game Hanks has missed in her career was due to COVID restrictions in 2022 S6. She was a close contact, and within the AFLW selection rules at the time, not even daily negative PCR tests could get her into the team to face Gold Coast in round five.

"I actually never even got COVID, but I still couldn’t play," Hanks said.

Known for her skill – something no doubt born out of all those hours with footy in hand – there were suggestions around the 2018 draft that Hanks' height (157cm) would hold her back. But it didn't bother then-Melbourne list boss Todd Patterson or Stinear.

It was never a true concern for Hanks, either, who chose to channel her energy in a more productive way.

"I obviously heard it a lot, and I still hear it, and coming up against bigger mids, even with the young girls now, they're all getting bigger and bigger. But no, it's not something that really bothered me. I just think it probably gave me more a sense of, 'Well, I've got to be good at what I'm good at'," Hanks explained.

"Fundamentally, at my height, if you want to be an inside mid you have to be clean, you have to be strong in the contest so that you can compete… What's my weapon that can be their weakness?"

There is one drawback, though.

"You get a few extra elbows to the face, you're at elbow height," Hanks laughed.

She's known as an introvert, as a quiet achiever, but that's not to say she's shut off from the world. Melbourne, and those leaders, have offered a comfortable place for Hanks to be herself.

"The way she's grown as a player and as a person, over her 99 games, has been pretty remarkable," Hore said.

 "Clearly she's one of the best players in the competition, but touching on what I love about her as a person, she is the most humble, selfless person you will ever meet. She will hate this week because she won't want to talk about herself… It's a really good lesson in footy, if you want team success and you tip into that, often your individual success comes off the back of that."

Ask anyone about Hanks and they'll say something similar. She's humble, she's focused, and she wants nothing more than team success.

And this is exactly how she hopes she is remembered in 10, 15, 20 years' time. As someone who was selfless, and you want to have a beer with at the pub.

"I still would love people to know that, yeah, I love footy, I love the game," Hanks said.

"I'd love to finish my career as a great teammate, a great person that they just enjoyed playing footy with. Not just the football stuff, but I'd love people to think that I was a great, fun teammate that they loved sharing a career with."