QUEENSLAND draft prospect Sienna McMullen has played a lot of different sports with many different teammates over the years.
But her favourite? Her mum, Kylie.
The McMullens both play for Bond University in the QAFLW, Kylie mostly in the reserves and Sienna in the seniors, but the two have overlapped at times.
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"She's played every sport under the sun, and like no tomorrow. She's a weapon. She's 40 years old and she's still playing footy, and it's still amazing how she can smash all these girls," Sienna McMullen said.
"I have played with my mum at Bond Uni, I think that's the first ever mother-daughter duo that's ever happened (at the club) – sometimes we get a bit loud with each other, sometimes she doesn’t like playing with me, because I might yell at her a little, but only because I love her.
"I enjoy playing with her. She plays anywhere, she likes playing back because she's a bit feisty, she's smaller than me, so she doesn't get a lot of the high marks, but once it's on the ground, it's fair game for her and she's on the ball."
McMullen, 18, is a quick winger who covers the ground with ease, her enthusiastic nature off the field reflected in her buzzing attack on the footy.
She picked up the game while living on the Central Coast in New South Wales, before moving to the Gold Coast in 2020 and linking up with the Suns Academy.
"I started playing footy for school in year five or six. I was the type of person who'd do every sport just to get a day off school. I thought, 'why not try footy?' I got my mouthguard from the chemist, my boots, I was just so excited, and I've just fallen in love with it," McMullen said.
"I would probably describe my role as (providing) the speed in the game, being that A2 support. I definitely provide numbers to the contest with my speed, and I want to use my speed to get around players.
"I'm very close with a lot of the Suns girls, through training with some of them, like Alison Drennan. She always has a positive attitude and she's just so skilled and has an amazing mindset, she's pretty inspiring."
The bubbly McMullen unsurprisingly thrives in a team environment, with the people being just as important as the sport itself.
"I love a team game. I love individual sports and stuff, but I love how you can be surrounded by a team with all your teammates and I love the fitness it gives you. If I'm not doing footy in my off-season, I'm doing four other sports, because I need to stay fit and I can't find another way to do it. I think it's even better when you get to do it with your friends – my best friends are in footy, so that's my favourite part about football," she said.
"I've done swimming, cross country, athletics, touch football, rugby sevens, triathlons, pretty much any sport under the sun that didn't cost much to just get into the sport. I've done cricket for school once, I just do it for fun and I like to get out and about. To me, the people around me is the best part of it."
A series of wrist and hand injuries over the past few years – "I seriously have a cup of milk every day, but it's not enough, I guess" – has inspired McMullen's potential career path.
"I want to do sport science, then hopefully physio, and then from there become a hand specialist, because I've broken my hands that many times, it's inspired me to do something like that," she said.
"The people I've worked with have been so amazing, that I want to become one of them too."
The AFLW Draft will be held in the evening of Monday, December 18.
