IT WAS the coffee catch-up that resulted in a No.1 draft pick.
Former Geelong ruck Erin Hoare hadn't played top-flight football since 2019, taking time off for post-PhD studies in mental health at Cambridge University and having children Edie and Connor.
But the Cats put out tentative feelers to the 33-year-old in late 2022, before coach Dan Lowther, head of footy Brett Johnson and physical performance coach Anula Costa teed up to meet in person for the first time in mid-January.
AFLW DRAFT WRAP Every selection as it happened
Hoare walked into 9grams on Pakington Street, pram and Connor in tow, and the seed was planted.
On Tuesday night, Hoare was selected with the Cats' sole pick – No.1 – in the AFLW Season Eight Supplementary Draft.
Geelong have had two mothers successfully return to football after giving birth in Kate Darby and Renee Garing, and with Sammy Gooden set to have daughter Billie, the Cats were able to pitch their experience in helping women come back to the top level.
They also needed a tall replacement for Gooden, to help support Liv Fuller and pinch-hitter Darby.
In a league filled with unexpected pathways to the AFLW, Hoare's is more unusual than most.
She grew up playing club netball as a goal shooter with St Mary's – the courts which surround GMHBA Stadium – till her early 20s, when her height of 194cm proved irresistible to the Melbourne Vixens, skipping the traditional teenage talent pathways.
Her studies took over her netball career, but AFLW later beckoned.
"When AFLW started, I'd just come back from overseas. I watched the games, and in a similar story to a lot of other players who picked it up late, I was just so inspired and just so refreshed by this change in sport, these opportunities and skills required to play football," she told womens.afl back in 2020.
"Having watched my brothers play growing up, I knew a lot about the game but never saw it as a space for women. To finally see it was just the most extraordinary feeling and just something I wanted to be a part of. Geelong had a (VFLW) women's football program commencing, I had the opportunity to go and train, and then it just went from there."
DRAFT ANALYSIS What each selection means for your club
With Geelong not entering the AFLW till 2019, she signed at Melbourne as a rookie for the 2018 season, before returning home to the Cats.
While she spent time at Cambridge University in 2020, COVID ultimately scuppered her plans to take up a Fulbright Scholarship at Boston University.
Upon returning home, she has taken up a part-time role at the AFL as mental health and wellbeing research lead, as well as studying to be a child psychologist.
After giving birth to Connor last year, she has begun her return-to-football program with the club's VFLW team, ahead of the AFLW season in August.
