LILY Mithen admits she had a lot to learn about being a professional footballer – particularly off the field – when she first arrived at the Melbourne Football Club as an 18-year-old. 

Mithen, now 26, was a ball of energy, cracking jokes in team meetings, latching onto senior teammates and making a competition out of nearly every scenario.

"I was an absolute hurricane," she explained.

"I was just so raw. I was loving my time playing footy, living my dream experience and not really knowing how to, I guess, contain that energy."

"Whether it was being a larrikin in the gym, making everything a competition and annoying people because I thought it was funny, I'd just do anything to create a fun environment. Or I'd make stupid jokes in team meetings and people would be like, 'Lily, pull your head in, what are you doing?'."

But as the livewire Demon has matured into a star of the competition, she has learned to strike a more sustainable energy balance between her high-octane personality and the demands of elite-level football, having found her energy levels waning throughout a season.

"I was an emotional rollercoaster. I'd come in, be the class clown, have so much fun and then crash," Mithen said.

"I'd get home and be absolutely exhausted and my friends and family would be like, 'Where have you gone?' and I'd be like 'I'm just giving all of myself to footy'."

Mithen's mood would fluctuate from being the highest of highs, to dropping suddenly, and her teammates would notice.

"People would be like, 'Oh, Lily is in a mood,' and I found it really hard to pull myself out of that."

When Mithen's energy was low, she would switch into a snappy, frustrated version of herself who would become visibly annoyed when she made a mistake at training.

It wasn't until senior coach Mick Stinear pointed out the shift to the midfielder, that she realised she needed to become a more consistent teammate.

"I think Mick was the one that really dropped that on me in the sense that it made me think about it on a deeper level and how that (my behaviour) could influence a group," she recalled.

"In the early days he just posed the question to me, 'Do you realise what sort of effect that has on other people when you are being a bit of a rollercoaster?'

"From there it was working with the staff at the club and looking at ways to manage life and know where to give to others and where to give to myself - having balance and listening to myself with a little bit more compassion and care."

Mithen is now more conservative with her energy, in an effort to save her best self for the training track.

"I guess I just slowly started to dial back and consider, 'Is this bit of energy exerted on doing something silly or high energy just for the sake of it… am I going to get energy back from making that decision?'" she said.

"If the answer was no then I'd reconsider and then lay low for the times that I needed to, so then I was the best teammate on the track possible.

"I think sometimes you can get that balance wrong if you spend all your tickets in the locker room before training, and then you're burnt out by the time you're on the track."

The youngster also leant on club leaders, former captain and AFLW legend Daisy Pearce and five-time All Australian Paxy Paxman.

"Daisy is very much an authentic leader as well as Paxy, they allow for all different personalities to show," Mithen said.

"I've had a heap of conversations with Paxy since being like, 'It's so funny to think you are like the person that you are now at footy because you would get so angry and you would get annoyed and you'd just be this turbo kid all the time.

"Now you're really consistent and you know what you're going to get. Still a heap of fun and lifting the group's energy all the time, but you also have that sort of sound nature to the way you go about things."

These days you'll find Mithen balancing her day job as a footballer with her hobbies and interests away from the game. Surfing, getting out of the city and spending time with family and friends provide her with the balance she needs to recharge her batteries.

"Whether it be out to the beach or back to the farm at home or just going on nice walks in the city, I feel like they're really good ways to take your mind off footy, have a mental break, switch off," she said.

"It's important to enjoy what life has to offer away from footy because you can get tunnel vision that footy is the most important thing in the world, and whilst it is a very important thing in my life, there is so much more to life other than kicking a footy around with your mates."

Since arriving at Melbourne, Mithen has been fortunate to experience team success year-on-year. In the Demons' nine AFLW seasons, they have been perennial premiership contenders, and eventual premiers in season seven.

So midway through this season when Melbourne found itself sitting 16th on the ladder it was new territory for Mithen and her Demons. After a win in week one, they went onto lose the next four games in a row, something Mithen had ever experienced before. The Demons' 65-point loss to Essendon in week five was a low point when the club recorded its lowest-ever score and largest defeat.

Mithen admits that the younger version of herself wouldn't have been able to handle the challenges that come with playing on a losing side.

"If it was me coming in as an 18-year-old I would be potentially throwing a tantrum and spitting the dummy out of the cot, crying 'No this is not meant to happen. Melbourne's a good team and I want to be winning'," she said.

However, these days Mithen was one of the leaders who set the tone and kept team morale high.

"I did think that a lot of key senior people set the tone, me included. It was just 'Let's just crack on and get to business'. 

"You'd come in on a Monday morning and you wouldn't necessarily know that we'd had a loss against Essendon like we did, we all just kind of came in, we were ready to get to work and were all really driven by trying to find a way forward. 

"I think that was one of the things that really bound us together and why we ended up going on a bit of a winning streak after that was because we were looking to each other for answers as opposed to looking at one another and pointing fingers."

Following the Essendon game Melbourne went on to win five of their next six matches, finishing ninth on the ladder and narrowly missing finals. Mithen believes the experiences of this year will only bring her team closer and that with a fully fit team next season will see the Dees return to finals.

"Absolutely. We had a bit of a new look team this season, so another season of experience as a team as a whole, will only create more cohesion," she said.

"We can really build on what we started to produce late in the season, so there's definitely plenty of upside in our group and building on the framework that we set in the later part of the season.

"The way that we dealt with a bit of adversity and bound together as opposed to fracture, is something that Mick and a lot of the players are really proud to be part of, so there's good things coming."