Canberra United star Ellie Brush jokes about testing herself as a goalkeeper to work on her drop punt, but she's serious about a cross-code juggling act that has her oozing excitement.
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Brush was officially unveiled as a GWS Giants recruit on Tuesday for the inaugural women's AFL season, which starts in February.
She will join WNBL games record holder and former Canberra Capitals star Jess Bibby as the Giants' two pre-draft rookie signings for the much-anticipated women's AFL season.
Brush will play for Canberra United in the W-League while also training with the Giants to live a childhood dream of being able to play Australian football.
The women's AFL competition and new netball set-up have opened doors for female athletes to earn more money and is challenging other sports to raise the bar in professionalism.
Brush played junior Australian football and cricket at school before choosing soccer as her pathway and now she's itching for a chance to test herself in a new sport.
"I played a bit in high school as well but nothing serious. Dad played [for Eastlake] and when I heard about the women's league, it was really exciting and I wanted to see if I could do it," Brush said.
"I jumped right in and trained with the Giants Academy in Canberra after the last W-League season because I just wanted to keep running around.
"It's great to be a part of it and just for the sport itself, girls grow up playing Auskick or footy but have nowhere to go. It's great that there's now a pathway there."
Brush has been based in the United States for most of the year, playing soccer for the Houston Dash and linking with the Houston Lonestars as a social member to fine-tune her Australian football skills.
She has also signed a new deal with Canberra United to play in her ninth W-League season and is on the verge of becoming the club's first player to reach 100 games.
It should come as no surprise that Brush is multi-talented, having won the Cricket ACT junior player of the year award in 2003 before choosing soccer has her No. 1 sport.
Her great-uncle Donald Duffy was the Melbourne Football Club president for 12 years, and an opportunity to play in the inaugural women's AFL season was too good to pass up.
"The more professional female athletes we get out there the better, and hopefully we're part of growing it and in years to come the pay situation will change to allow that," Brush said from Houston.
"None of the girls over here know much about footy at all. We had an AFL grand final party with the local Houston team and I had to explain the game to them.
"They think it's weird with the short shorts and the cut-off shirts. It's mostly been the round ball over here but I've got a footy as well to keep me sharp."
The W-League regular season finishes at the end of January with finals to follow in the first weeks of February.
The seven-game AFL season begins shortly after and Brush hopes to make visits to Sydney during the W-League campaign to stay up to speed with the Giants.
Giants coach Tim Schmidt said of Brush: "We first saw Ellie at the national talent search the AFL did at the start of the year.
"Her results were amongst the very top on the day, but we were particularly impressed with her skills in the game. She is a very smooth mover around the ground with the skills to match."
Meanwhile, Canberra United will unveil a marquee international signing on Wednesday for the 2016-17 W-League season. Brush will return to Canberra on October 14 to ramp up her W-League preparations.
