How the 'grueling sport' of surf lifesaving helped shape Suns AFLW players

Nine Gold Coast Suns players have surf lifesaving backgrounds. Players say their experience helps them prepare for the unknown. The Suns are drafting a high percentage of local talent, and have gone from wooden spooners to fifth-placed finishers in a year. Ava Usher was quick to make an impact in her first season of AFLW. Before her one-match suspension for a high bump in round 11, she was the outright favourite for the Rising Star. Part of what made the 19-year-old integrate so easily into the AFLW was her multi-sport background, having competed in little athletics, swimming, basketball, boxing, footy and surf life saving (SLS). The latter is a particularly common sport for Gold Coasters growing up, including many Suns players. "I think most people [who have done it] would say that it's a very hard, grueling sport," Usher told ABC Sport. "I started at four years old and [began] competing when I was about 10 or 11. It teaches you a lot of discipline, and it definitely has carried over to footy." Gold Coast currently have nine players with SLS backgrounds, including five in the women's program (Usher, Havana Harris, Nyalli Milne, Lucy Single and Bronte Parker), and four in the men's (Jed Walter, Will Graham, Ethan Read and Jai Murray). SLS competitions feature water-based events such as individual and team swims, board and ski paddling, and beach-based events, including high-speed sprints, relay races, and the intense "Beach Flags" elimination competition where athletes lie face-down in the sand and sprint for a baton upon a signal. They also teach practical lifesaving skills, such as resuscitation, spinal management, rescue tube tows, and multi-person medical response. "There's a lot of setbacks in surf lifesaving, it's a very unpredictable sport," Usher said. "You might be ranked the best, but you never know how you're going to race on the day and what the conditions are going to be. "It just prepares you for that kind of unknown … You never know what you're going to do on the day and, you never know, your life could flash before your eyes." Single, one of Gold Coast's co-captains, competed in SLS throughout school, specialising in beach running. She says that experience made running on a football field seem easy by comparison. "I was a 'beachy', as they call it, and we actually trained on a lot of different surfaces. So obviously majority on the beach, but then we also trained on a track and on a grass track … and a lot of gym work too." While they are full-time footballers now, when not at the club, they will probably be at the beach. They say this helps with both physical and mental recovery. "You always know after a game, the majority of us will be in some sort of body of water along the ocean," Single said. "I don't know the science behind it, but there's something about being in a big body of water. It kind of feels like a reset of the soul. "And just being out in nature and being in such a gorgeous place. You can't help but feel good." With the Suns drafting a high percentage of local talent from their academy, many players know each other before joining the club. Of the 33 players on the Suns's women's list, 16 are Gold Coasters. Usher, for example, used to compete with her good friend Harris in SLS before joining the academy at 13. Single used to watch the pair run around with her own younger sisters before joining the Suns. In round one alone, Gold Coast had eight graduates debut: Sunny Lappin, Georgia Davies, Mikayla Nurse, Dekota Baron, Usher, Alannah Welsh, Parker and Heidi Talbot. The new injection of homegrown academy talent has helped Gold Coast go from wooden spooners last year to a fifth-placed finish. "Something in the Gold Coast waters, eh?" Single said. The ABC of SPORT Sports content to make you think... or allow you not to. A newsletter delivered each Saturday.