Brielle: Did you ever face any challenges playing soccer, because you’re a girl?<\/p>\n
Mary:\u00a0When I first started playing, I was playing with boys’ teams when I was younger, and I really enjoyed that. I think it actually improved me a lot as a player.<\/p>\n
I think when I started playing girls football, I think I felt more comfortable in it because I had played with the boys and it was difficult playing with the boys. So I don’t think I’ve had a lot of like challenges in, like coming into the women’s game. I think I came at a very lucky time. I think a lot of players before me, they haven’t had as many opportunities or, resources. So for me, I’ve been really blessed. I play at a really good club, really good national team. So I’m really lucky in that way. But some other players don’t have as many things as I do, so probably for them it’s a bit harder.<\/p>\n
Brielle: Do you still have family in Cairns? and do you ever get to go back and visit them?<\/p>\n
Mary:\u00a0Yeah. So all my family still lives in Cairns. So I try to go back there at least once a year when I get time off because I live in England, so, it’s on the other side of the world. But yeah, I still call Cairns home. It’s very hot there, so I look forward to the sun.<\/p>\n
And yeah, my family, we travelled a lot, but then they came back to Cairns and they’re still living there now,<\/p>\n
Brielle: What is the best thing about being a CommBank Matilda?<\/p>\n
Mary:\u00a0The best thing. There’s quite a few good things about it, but if I had to pick one, I would say probably the friends that I’ve made. There\u2019s a few of my best friends now that I’ve met through playing in the national team. And I feel really grateful that I have them in my life.<\/p>\n
Because even when we’re not in camp, they\u2019re really like supportive for me outside. And I’m someone that loves to be around people that have good energy. They\u2019re some of the best people that I have in my life now. So very blessed.<\/p>\n
But I also just say, like, getting to travel a lot and visit new countries. That’s been really cool. So, yeah, there’s a lot of, like, new experiences that you get through playing on a national team.<\/p>\n
Brielle:\u00a0Okay. That’s it.<\/p>\n
Mary:\u00a0Good job.\u00a0You did brilliant. I love that.<\/p>\n
Together, CommBank and the AFC are uniting fans across Australia and the region for the AFC Women\u2019s Asian Cup Australia 2026TM. For more information visit\u00a0commbank.com.au\/football<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0womensasiancup2026.com.au\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brielle: Did you ever face any challenges playing soccer, because you’re a girl? Mary:\u00a0When I first started playing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[43902,631,4118,85,10143,46,43,105],"class_list":["post-334894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cba-story","tag-community","tag-football","tag-il","tag-insights","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}