Goodman’s home run
SELINA Goodman stands on the cusp of an AFLW premiership just a few months ago she thought would never happen.
The Brisbane Lions ruck rolled the dice and moved back home to the Gold Coast from Cairns last year in the pursuit of reaching the AFLW.
But her plans were derailed when she suffered an ankle injury in the Coolangatta Bluebirds QWAFL grand final win over Yeronga South Brisbane.
Goodman thought her AFLW dreams were in tatters and that no club would pick her up in the draft.
Even when Brisbane chose her the 26-year-old went through a period where she doubted whether she would play because of her injury.
“I had some bone bruising and other stuff going on in my ankle so most of the pre-season with the Lions I was in the rehab group,” Goodman said.
“The injury felt pretty bad and I thought ‘I don’t know if I will end up playing or know if my ankle would come good’.
“It didn’t feel like it was ever going to come good.
“Brisbane had a trial day before the draft and I attended that but I couldn’t run and I thought because of that my chances were slim.
“I was very worried, I had a lot of self-doubt when the draft was on. I didn’t know with my ankle but I was lucky enough for it to all go through.
“But I had a cortisone injection and over the Christmas break we had a lot of conditioning work and running to do. I was able to get out there and start running and it’s been fine ever since.”
The Helensvale State High School teacher has since gone on to thrive in the inaugural AFLW season and will have the chance to lift the premiership trophy in her home city.
“I moved down here to pursue my dream and here we are, it’s grand final week,” Goodman said.
“It’s fantastic to play on the Gold Coast in front of my family and friends and even my school. The whole school community can come as well, so it’s great.”
Lions women’s coach Craig Starcevich believed from the outset Brisbane had the makings of a premiership team but Goodman said it wasn’t until a few rounds in that the players echoed his confidence.
“At the start of the season when the coach said, ‘I think we could potentially win a premiership’ most of us were like, ‘ No that’s probably not going to be us this year’,” Goodman said.
“We didn’t really know what we were capable of. Queensland is not known for its AFL at all.
“We thought we will go in and give it a crack, probably see how it feels and see how things go.
“After Round 1 when we played Melbourne and beat them I think that was like ‘OK we are actually in this, if we are beating Melbourne we could probably beat a couple of other sides maybe.’
“The next one we won and our confidence kept building.”
The Lions yesterday had nine players named in the 40woman All-Australian squad, including Gold Coaster Leah Kaslar, with Adelaide having five players short-listed.
The inaugural AFLW AllAustralian team will be officially named on Tuesday.