IT TOOK a year’s break from football and just four games in two seasons for Mattea Breed to be drafted by Hawthorn in the 2023 AFLW supplementary draft.

Selected by Hawthorn with the fourth pick in April, it was a moment Breed could never have dreamed of after stepping away from football in 2021.

Breed grew up in Darwin and began her football journey at 15, playing for the Darwin Buffaloes before moving to Adelaide in 2020 to join SANFLW side Norwood and give herself the best opportunity to pursue football professionally.

However soon after the move, Breed found her spark for the game had been lost, in no small part due to a tumultuous and COVID-impacted season.

"I just wasn’t really enjoying it and it was probably just the best decision for me at the time,” she said of her decision to step away from the game after a handful of matches in 2021.

After a year on the sidelines, the handy utility then decided to re-enter the football world through an Adelaide amateur league in 2022, suiting up for the Payneham Norwood Union Falcons.

The spark began to flicker once again, leading Breed to sign with North Adelaide in the SANFLW with hopes of once again pursuing an AFLW career.

Just four games later, she was on the radar of multiple AFLW clubs.

Breed was unaware that her dream of becoming an AFLW player was a real chance of coming true, leaving a chat with Adelaide recruiters thinking she would be a chance in next year’s draft, not the upcoming one.

"I pretty much got (the idea that) you’re not plan A, but you’re definitely plan B or C. I obviously left that chat not feeling too confident," she said.

"With not having played at a high level before I returned to North (Adelaide), I sort of wasn’t really expecting to be [drafted].”

Breed then received a call from Hawthorn list manger, Mitch Cashion, just days out from the draft in April.

"I spoke with Mitch again on the morning of the draft day and he sort of said 'good luck, I can’t really say how things are going to go, but just keep doing what you’re doing'," she said.

"I sort of took that as 'maybe next year or just keep trying'."

A similar draft day call from the Hawks’ head coach Bec Goddard gave Breed similar messages.

"I was sort of like oh, that’s a bit of a shame. I didn’t really leave either of the conversations feeling too confident,” she said.

Breed then carried on her day as usual, heading to the North Adelaide gym for a session with her strength and conditioning coach, putting the draft on the gym television in the background.

The idea of having her name called out did not even cross the 21-year-old’s mind.  

"We were talking about it for a little bit and then straight up after that pretty much, my name popped up as pick No.4 - it was a massive surprise!” Breed said.

"I ended up calling my dad and he’d been watching the draft, but I hadn’t told (her parents) anything, I kind of kept it to myself. He’d been watching and he was already bawling."

Her mum, who wasn’t tuning in, was Breed’s next phone call.

"She was walking along the street and she just stopped dead in her tracks and started bawling her eyes out," Breed said.

"It was a lot of emotion. It was crazy, but it was really cool. I probably wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, it was kind of nice to not really expect it. And then it was a bonus to see my name pop up it was just like, oh cool!"

The intense football bubble that surrounds Melbourne was something that Breed noticed quite quickly after the move.

"I had a run-in the other day at my local Bunnings in Hawthorn where a guy was like 'oh do you play with the Hawthorn women’s team?’ And that was really cool,” Breed laughed.

The aspiring policewoman has started her pre-season at Waverley Park as a crafty forward after having played almost every position throughout her football career.   

"I would just love to play at this stage," Breed said.

Breed is feeling well at home with the brown and gold and has even been offered a job as the Indigenous programs coordinator at the club.

"It’s definitely a big, big move and really busy, but super rewarding. And I've got a really supportive network of people within work itself and the community department, but also within the footy department as well. So I’m really fortunate.”