Two-time premiership Lion Bre Koenen knows a little bit about success.
The Brisbane Lions skipper, originally from Magnetic Island, finished last season with a premiership and a best-on-ground medal, she's been with the Lions since their Inaugural game eight years ago, and is still as passionate as ever.
From the hours spent commuting to play footy as a child, to the added pressures of captaining the league's second most successful side to date bring with it its own set of challenges including maintaining motivation in what has been a seven-month offseason.
AFLW sides are technically only allowed to have three months of official preseason training, but most players do far more, and to come off the back of a premiership into such a long expanse of time can be difficult if players don't manage it properly.
"We are ready for preseason to be over and to get into the real deal, we're just ready to get stuck in," Koenen said.
"I think it's important to have a break as well, so we definitely took a fair chunk of time off over Christmas and the New Year to just regather ourselves.
"We needed to celebrate the win, enjoy it and then recover and recuperate, so then we were actually ready to go again, and yeah, I think the determination, the drive we have is there as much as ever."
When ESPN asked Koenen, tongue-in-cheek, if she intended to win the Grand Final again, the skipper gave an amused grin paired with "Duh."
But it's not that simple at all.
"That's the goal (a premiership) but it's the process to get there that is the more important part which we need to tick off and there's a lot of steps to get there, so we're starting at the bottom again.
"Coming off the back of last year, we had a lot to work on still and just still trying to work on that growth mindset and get better every year. We're not happy or complacent where we are."
However, 29-year-old Koenen has reshaped the way her week looks this season, giving up her job as a physiotherapist to fully focus on the job at hand.
"It's been really full on to try and do both and I know a lot of our girls have experienced the same, so obviously with the push to mid-week, that's going to get harder again," she said.
What Koenen is alluding to is the fixture between rounds four and seven which have AFLW games played every single day of the week except Mondays.
"It's an interesting sort of transition period where we're trying to fit games in and at the right time," said the skipper.
"I do understand the fact that there is open time around the men's finals bye week and all those sorts of things to consider, so it's an absolute nightmare to try and figure out where that's best fit.
"It'll be a little bit of trial and error as to whether the Wednesday and Tuesday games work and how that looks going forward but obviously year on year, we're adding games so it's going have to shift one way or another.
"That's the only massive hurdle that I see, and then obviously it's just dependent on whether that time period broadcast wise and attendance wise is suitable."
On her new chance to fully immerse herself in footy for the next ten, hopefully fourteen (pending finals) weeks, Koenen is frank about the toll of trying to juggle too many things takes on a person.
"I just got to the stage where, to be totally honest, I was burnt out in preseason, I was pretty cooked, and to be totally transparent I was just being silly, so just had to focus on footy and prioritise myself, I only get this opportunity to be an elite athlete for so long," she said.
"It's weird. I've got way too much time to do stuff, because in the past I didn't have a moment to take a breath."
The Lions will open their season at Brighton Homes Arena against North Melbourne in a Grand Final rematch on Sunday at 3.05pm.