'ONLY child syndrome' and a youth spent trying to keep herself occupied led West Coast star Bella Lewis to footy.

Name an interesting solo sport, Lewis has probably tried it. Early years in gymnastics led to a specialisation in trampolining. A desire to avoid boredom sent her to the skate park. Plenty of energy had her taking dance classes from Jason Derulo.

But the one that stuck was footy.

"I'm originally from Sydney, so (footy) wasn't a thing, really," Lewis told AFL.com.au.

"My grandpa's a mad Sydney Swans supporter, so am I at heart unfortunately, so we used to always go to the games and go to kick-to-kick. Then I played for a year and stopped, moved to Perth.

"I was at a local skate park and one of the boys was like 'Hey, want to come down and play a game of footy?'"

And that's all it took to get Lewis back to AFL. But journeying through different sports allowed her to develop skills and an understanding of her body that make her the player she is.

"Spatial awareness in my body, like more in my body, not the environment," Lewis said of her trampolining experience.

That foray into gymnastics started at just five years old, following in the footsteps of her mother.

"She was a gymnast, she was obsessed with it," Lewis said.

"We're very genetically the same, so I take a lot of my genetics from her, which is great. She always pushed, she always loved it, she was always the mum sitting at the front with her phone out … so when I decided I wanted to go to footy, she wasn't extremely happy about it, but now she is."

So much time spent in individual sports, however, has given Lewis an understanding of who she wants to be for her teammates.

"Just someone who's really reliable," Lewis.

"Leadership is something that's really important to me. So, one and off the field, I always try and grow in that space, and if they know that I'm always going to show up for them, day in and day out, win or loss, that's going to make me happy at the end of the day."

Reflecting on her own experience of her early footy career—both the good and bad—has informed the kind of teammate and leader Lewis is now, five years on.

"When I came into the competition, in our team especially, I was 17 and then we had Mikayla Bowen who was 18 or 19 at the time, and then above that everyone was 24, 25. I look back at it now, I'm really grateful for that, but it was hard at the time because I didn't feel like I had a lot of people around the same age where I could go through that (with them)," Lewis explained.

"It felt like a lot of pressure on my shoulders at the time, but what it's done for my leadership and the people we have, like (Emma Swanson), (Belinda) Smith, even (Daisy Pearce) coming in, it's put my focus on the team so much more.

"And playing well is not about playing for me, it's about doing the best we can for the young girls coming through."