Gold Coast AFLW player Dee Heslop details her dramatic journey to the Suns list

Most potential recruits are anxious in the lead up to the national draft but for Gold Coast AFLW player Dee Heslop, the added bearing of a shoulder injury threatened to bring her dream crumbling down. Heslop details her dramatic to the Suns.

MOST potential recruits are anxious in the lead up to the national draft but for Gold Coast AFLW player Dee Heslop, the added bearing of a shoulder injury threatened to bring her dream crumbling down.

Heslop, 18, looked destined to join the Suns list after thriving in the club’s academy program, representing Queensland at under-18 level for three straight years and part of the 2018 AFLW academy team.

But a shoulder injury suffered by while preparing for the under-18 national championships in June and the delayed surgery that followed had Heslop, eventually taken with pick 69 of the draft, fearing 2019 may end in disaster.

Gold Coast Suns AFLW player Dee Heslop. Picture: Supplied.

“I went to go tackle someone and my shoulder went out the wrong way,” Heslop said.

“We had a few problems with it and then got a few tests done and everything was clear,

“I didn’t get an MRI at that stage and then I had to get a few medicals done before the combine (in September) and they were like ‘we will throw in an MRI to see how it’s going’. “They ended up they saying I needed surgery.

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“My first thought was the draft straight away because it only a few months out from it.

“I was still really worried about what (the Suns) opinion was and that’s why we had to sort out a plan.

“If I wasn’t able to play through the season then they weren’t going to pick me up which was fair enough.

“I needed to see what we could do so I was really lucky that Im going to be back in time.”

The injury also forced Heslop out of the national combine in September where players had the chance to put their skills on show in front of clubs but it didn’t deter Gold Coast from picking her.

The 2020 AFLW season starts in February next year and that is when Heslop hopes to be back playing.