COLLINGWOOD star Brit Bonnici could not be more excited to get back on the footy field. 

"I am not patient," Bonnici told womens.afl.  

"Let's not even do a pre-season, let's just do round one, let's go, let's get started."  

In late February last year, Bonnici's Pies were pushing for a third consecutive finals series, and had started strongly at their Victoria Park fortress against the Western Bulldogs, but disaster struck just 13 minutes in. 

Bonnici landed awkwardly in the back pocket, went to ground, and stayed there, punching the grass and grabbing at her knee. For the second time that season, Collingwood had lost an integral player to an ACL injury. 

The Pies went on to win the game, posting the highest score in club history and solidifying a place in the finals, but the air was thin knowing the severity of Bonnici's injury. 

But the 2021 All-Australian has come a long way, both physically and emotionally since that day. 

"If you had asked me six months ago how I was feeling, f***, terrible," a frank Bonnici said. 

"You wouldn't get the same response now that things are all right, but I just want to play footy, honestly." 

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Since that injury in season six, the AFLW landscape has changed significantly. Four new teams have joined the competition and the season itself has shifted to an August start, the latter meaning both Bonnici and teammate Brianna Davey missed all of season seven. 

When first hearing the news of the season shift, Bonnici took it as a personal attack, but has since come around to the benefit of extra months in rehab. 

"I was like 'f*** this, the AFL hate me, they've done this because I'm missing the season'. The world was crumbling at that stage," Bonnici said with a laugh.  

"But now that it's sort of like I'm seeing the reality of it and whatnot, I'm so lucky that I just have so much time to sort of get my knee right now … I have all this time to fine-tune my skills and get all the cobwebs out at the practice games. We have two practice games before I come back for my first actual round. Who does their ACL and gets practice games?" 

Bonnici and Davey's availability will be a welcome addition to an ever-changing Collingwood AFLW team, which made some significant changes to its list during the off-season to prepare for long-term success. 

"We're going to be a different Collingwood this year which, truthfully it's exciting. I think like the last time we were a new Collingwood was probably when we got (head coach) Steve (Symonds). And you think like about the landscape of the AFLW since it started, we had three years where we're really bad. We were really bad," she said.

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"And then we had the fresh start, and we had the new Pies, and we got Steve and we started to actually do well, and we've been good, for the last three years, four years, we've been great, but you need that new revamp. It's like anything, things get stagnant after a bit of time and like, how cool that we keep Steve, usually the coach has to go to get that revamp," Bonnici said with enthusiasm.  

"Don't get me wrong, it sucks to lose the four players. Like, I love them all, I love those girls, they're unbelievable people. But also, we get the chance to start again. What AFLW club has that now? No one." 

Part of that change, while it has meant bidding goodbye to inaugural captain Steph Chiocci, two-time All-Australians Jaimee Lambert and Chloe Molloy, and reliable goalkicker Jordan Membrey, it has also, among others, brought in 22-year-old pair Nell Morris-Dalton and Tarni White.  

"Nell Morris-Dalton is going to be so good for us, she's actually going to be unreal. And also look at Tarni White for example, think about the fact that the future of our club is now Tarni White, Mikayla Cann, Lauren Butler and Jordyn Allen. Good luck when they're the 26, 27-year-olds of the competition. They're going to be our core collective and I'm going to be fighting for my spot." 

But for now, it's not just Morris-Dalton and White that Collingwood fans should be looking forward to seeing. It's the return of Brit Bonnici as she looks to take her game to yet another level on her return from injury. 

"I just honestly, I can't wait. I'm really so excited," she said.