TESSA Lavey never thought her big toe would threaten to end her elite sporting career. But that's exactly what happened last year for the Richmond vice-captain.

She sat out the 2023 NAB AFLW season, and also missed a huge chunk of her WNBL season with the Bendigo Spirit, because of a severe toe injury, and the prospect of returning to sport was in jeopardy.

"I was like 'Oh it's just a toe, it'll be fine', but it was my big toe," Lavey said on AFL.com.au's Credit to the Girls podcast.

"In particular, the joint in the big toe, there's sort of no cartilage left, a bit of arthritis going on as well. And then my sesamoids on that too are bipartal, which means they're split in half, which is not meant to happen.

"So, I pushed through it, just stating it was a toe injury and I was like 'Ah well, toe, don't worry about it' but then I got a scan, and it was not good."

Speaking to a doctor after the scan brought the reality of the injury into clear focus.

"The doctor was seriously like 'I think you've got to figure out what you want to do after your sporting career'," Lavey said.

Thankfully, the winger made her return to footy last weekend thanks to of a diligent rehab program and support from Richmond, but it gave her perspective on what life after footy – and basketball - might look like.

"I did both sports simultaneously and I didn't have any time to look outside of those sports. But once the doctor said that, I was like, alright, it's time to get busy outside and focus a little bit on myself and what I'm interested (in)," Lavey said.

"I found some really interesting stuff with PDM, which is player development management, so I did some study in that and I'd love to get into that area of sport and working with kids in particular and expectations around sport and how they can deal with that moving forward.

"So, watch this space, and you may see me out there doing some PDM work for clubs in the future."

But that period of self-discovery didn't come without some hiccups, particularly the discomfort of having to watch her Tigers struggle without being able to impact on the field.

This year, however, is about bouncing back and righting the ship.

"Watching was really difficult and as a group coming into this year, we know we're not happy with last year, and we know that we want to be successful and we've spoken about that," Lavey said.

"We've spoken about how we can make that happen as a group, and credit to the girls and 'Ferg' (head coach Ryan Ferguson) and everyone involved at Richmond, we've really fed into that and I think the players are really taking leadership in this role now of being like, put your hand up, we're driving this thing now.

"Instead of coaches asking more from us, we're really driving that as a group."