Outback mum Courtney Wakefield journey in joining Richmond’s AFLW side
Courtney Wakefield’s journey to the big time is the road less travelled. From a strange tryout to her 14-hour road trips to games, she is now expected to partner Sabrina Frederick in Round 1.
Richmond
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There were two reasons that could’ve excluded Courtney Wakefield from completing the 2km run at Richmond’s tryout day in 2017.
The first was that Wakefield didn’t register for the Bendigo session. The second was that she was busy breastfeeding seven-week-old son Sid.
“I was seven weeks postpartum and I was probably in a bit of a newborn haze,” Wakefield said after booting a goal against West Coast in yesterday’s AFLW practice match win at Punt Rd.
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“Even from home it’s four hours to Bendigo, so I did the trip with my two children.
“It wasn’t until I’d successfully got through to the VFLW program that Kate (football boss Kate Sheahan) told me you actually had to sign up for the day.
“I rocked up without having put my name down and they kind of looked at me and thought, ‘Sh-t we can’t turn her away, she’s come all this way with a newborn’.
“I couldn’t do the 2km – I had to go breastfeed, but I probably wasn’t fit enough at the time. It was quite a challenge, but we got through successfully and here we are.”
The trip to Bendigo was a picnic compared to what followed.
After Wakefield, 32, made the cut there were 14-hour round-trips from her farm in western New South Wales to play VFLW every week.
For the upcoming AFLW season she has relocated to Pearcedale, settling in ahead of Richmond’s season-opener against Carlton on February 7.
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“It’s only a 50-minute drive up the highway now, compared to seven hours without kids, and with kids it took a little bit longer,” Wakefield said.
The outback mum’s farm in Top Hut, about an hour north of Mildura, is the equivalent of 25,000 MCGs complete with a driveway that’s “only seven or eight kilometres” long.
“So it’s 109,000 acres, and from the start of my football journey we’ve been in drought,” Wakefield said.
“It’s been hard. We just had 65ml (of rain) last week, which will take the pressure off a little bit. We’ve got merino sheep and a few feral goats, so it keeps us busy enough.”
Teammate Alice Edmonds (Victoria Police) has missed training recently to help with the bushfire crisis while Phoebe Monahan (Australian Defence Force) remains on standby.
Wakefield partnered former Brisbane Lion Sabrina Frederick in a two-pronged attack yesterday that allowed captain Katie Brennan to dominate at centre bounces.
Midfielder Lauren Tesoriero, who drafted herself as a Tigers scout last year and is attempting to play without an ACL, came on in the second half and is in the leadership group.
“That’s what KB was hoping to do, and given we’ve got a fairly solid forward line with a good mix of talls with previous AFLW experience, it’s allowed KB to go in there and flourish,” Wakefield said.
The mother-of-two anointed Laura McLelland as a key forward to watch this year and backed Kodi Jacques, 19, to impress in the midfield.
Wakefield’s mark on the lead and goal to start the second quarter sparked the crowd of 563 at Punt Rd as Richmond prevailed 7.9 (51) to 3.5 (23).
President Peggy O’Neal and chief executive Brendon Gale watched on, although no AFLW home-and-away games will be played at Punt Rd because the Tigers don’t want to lock their fans out.
Wakefield will have husband Tom and kids Tilly, 5, and Sid, 2, cheering her on against Carlton.
“And probably all of Sunraysia, too,” she said.
Originally published as Outback mum Courtney Wakefield journey in joining Richmond’s AFLW side