Katie Brennan is the poster woman for a new generation of AFL players

KATIE Brennan is strong and confident. She’s a centre half-forward, after all and the Bulldogs marquee feels empowered and wants other girls to feel the same way.

Women's AFL player Katie Brennan. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

KATIE Brennan is strong and confident. She’s a centre half-forward, after all.

Off the field she’s a poster woman for a new generation of AFL players, and a young entrepreneur to boot.

As females, especially young females, we often do destructive things to our bodies and we don’t even think it’s a big deal.

Katie Brennan

Brennan feels empowered and wants other girls to feel the same way.

It’s a mindset she has developed out of a challenging childhood.

As a 14-year-old growing up in Logan, near Brisbane, her mum suffered from mental health issues.

“You never really knew what was going to happen,” Brennan said.

Western Bulldogs women's AFL star. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

“It was hard to have stability in life, you never knew when the earth was going to fall from underneath you.”

Brennan suffered from bulimia during high school. She would push her body to the limit.

“As females, especially young females, we often do destructive things to our bodies and we don’t even think it’s a big deal,” she said.

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“For me it was vomiting and also just training. Training ridiculously.

“I was doing school sport … then I’d go to footy training and then I’d have a piece of sushi and then I wouldn’t really allow myself to have that for dinner, I didn’t think that I deserved it so you would be sick.

“It is such a horrible thing to think about a 17-year-old girl doing that to your body, but when you’re in that time and when you’re in that space, you don’t think any different. It’s normal for you.”

Katie Brennan in action for Darebin.

Football has been Brennan’s release.

She graduated from kicking with her older brother Paul and dad Terry through youth academy programs before she moved to Melbourne four years ago to join VWFL powerhouse Darebin.

Now she’s the Western Bulldogs’ marquee signing and just months off embarking on her first AFL pre-season ahead of February’s national women’s league.

“Football’s been my constant,” she said. “It’s been that place where you can come and feel comfortable, however you’re feeling.

“It’s kind of like that meditative feeling. When you’re out there you’re just thinking about the footy. You’re in flow. There’s kind of nothing else that really matters. It brings me so much joy.”

Now with a manager, sponsors and no doubt in time, a decent fan club, Brennan’s joy is about to be shared with a much wider audience.

Katie Brennan after being signed as one of the Western Bulldogs’ marquees.

“It’s kind of a whole new world,” she said of the fast-approaching national league.

”It’s so different to what we have experienced in the past. A lot of us girls have worked so hard for this. We’ve been playing for a number of years and dedicated all of our time and energy to this and now we’re reaping the rewards.”

Strength training helped change Brennan’s life and set her on the path to where she dominates on the park and also has a fitness training business and gym, kb.performance.

Brennan said she’d always been a bit of an entrepreneur, learning about business from her dad, who designs commercial kitchens.

“I started training a few friends in a little car park to start off with and then we went to training in my garage and then it was a bigger garage and then it was like, I need this gym,” she said.

Now, still just 23, Brennan said sharing the story of her early life had been difficult, but she hoped it would help others.

“It’s all about being a great footballer but also a really great role model,” she said.

“Those experiences that you do go through make you stronger It’s made me stronger as a footballer, as an athlete, as a person.”

“I want to pass on to the next generation of woman that being strong and being confident is such a special thing.”

Brennan’s mother and father separated during her teenage years.

After the upheaval of those times, Brennan is happy to report that her mother is well.

“She is healthy and thriving and we are a solid family all stronger for the challenges and the experiences life throws,” she said

Her Mum will be on hand, along with her Dad, at Whitten Oval on Saturday when Brennan takes up the key-forward post for the Bulldogs in the AFL All-Stars game.

Originally published as Katie Brennan is the poster woman for a new generation of AFL players