FREMANTLE coach Lisa Webb has opened up about the realities of combining playing elite sport with having children, having brought an end to her AFLW career in order to give birth to her second child.
Webb and husband Marc had given birth to son Ollie a few years before signing on with the Dockers as a rookie at the age of 33.
She played the 2018 season before giving the game away, and Leo, now three, was born some time after.
Webb was appointed senior coach of the Dockers in February this year after Trent Cooper's contract was not renewed.
"I wish I would have played for a bit longer. I had that ambition to stay at a club I really loved that time at, but age wasn't on my side, either, I really wanted to have another child," Webb told Credit to the Girls.
"It was very weird when I got to the club, and the media said to me it had actually been five years since I'd played my debut, on the day they announced that I'd got the job. That was a bit weird, but it felt like it was meant to be.
"I don't talk about it too much, but my son (Ollie) has cochlear implants, he was born pretty much deaf, it was one of those ones where it was going to be progressive. There were challenges associated with that.
"With having another child, there was also going to be one in four (chance of it happening again), so it was obviously the ability to have children, but also, there was a bit of a process to work through, like how do we make this work and do it the best way we know how.
"Ollie is an absolute delight, he teaches me a lot about what I do and how to be flexible, how to be adaptive, and he's a god-send, that child. Leo is a carrier, but he doesn't have it, but it was certainly a process to go from playing to making that decision, which was ultimately for family reasons. We had a bit of a process to work through to have our second child."
Marc is also a coach, holding an assistant role at the Western Bulldogs. The pair spent the first half of last year on opposite ends of the country, with Lisa having her own assistant coaching role at the Dockers, before reuniting at Whitten Oval for season seven of the AFLW.
Lisa's appointment to the senior job at Fremantle means the family has once again been split.
"[The kids are] the ones you worry about the most. When we made the decision about how we were going to make it work, we just wanted to make sure they were happy and content," Webb said.
"My son Ollie, he's eight, he's just moved back to his old school, which he's really rapt about. Then my three-year-old, Leo, he doesn't really know much different, so he was just excited to get on a plane, to be honest.
"The transition, and them missing Marc is difficult, we FaceTime heaps and try to get over there, obviously he came over when Bulldogs played Freo just the other week, so that was great.
"It is a constant juggle, but I have constant support not only with the club, but my mum and dad who I've moved in with, because our house is being rented. They are the ones that allow this to happen, along with Marc.
"Just this morning, I left at six o'clock and was pretty happy to get out the door quick this morning, because they had to do the school run. I was a bit excited about that."
In the podcast, Webb also discussed pre-season planning, the health of the list after an injury-decimated season, areas of improvement and players to watch in 2023.
