With AFLW community camp in Wodonga and Wangaratta well underway, Carlton player Darcy Vescio spoke on the trip's importance and travelling back to where it all began.

How special is it to have a community camp in your hometown?

"It's amazing. I was really excited to see Wangaratta pop up as our community camp destination. I think back to when I was younger growing up and the excitement that I would get knowing that AFL teams were coming to visit us, and to think that we can do that for the young kids now, and having W representation will be amazing."

Darcy's football journey to now

"I grew up playing for Whorouly Lions, they're a little town in between Wangaratta and Myrtleford. I played Auskick there up until under fourteens, and then I played my last year of junior footy with the Myrtleford Saints. From there I had to stop playing, because there weren't any avenues for me to play. I was lucky to pick up every other sport, netball, basketball, tennis, and then when I moved to Melbourne to study graphic design, that's when I picked up footy again with the Darebin Falcons."

The community camp purpose

"It's just about connecting with the kids. I feel like especially for country kids, it's pretty hard to get to Melbourne and see AFL games, so for us to come to them and provide them with that AFL/AFLW experience is really special and something that a lot of them won't get to experience if a community camp isn't in town. So, it's pretty important that we make the effort, get up the Hume and come see everyone, and hopefully encourage more participation in footy, and show that everyone can play footy, so hopefully we can get more people playing."

Getting back into the swing of pre-season 

"It's been awesome. It definitely feels like every year it gets more and more intense, but I think everyone's loving it. The squad's very fit at the moment and it's been exciting seeing the young ones come through, like Taylor McMillan and, Lily Baxter,, he way they're hitting bodies, seeing Brooke Boileau blend into the group as well as the Gold Coast Suns (recruits). It's been awesome, it's exciting to see what we can do this year and hopefully keep building on what we built last year."

The pre-season message from coach Mathew Buck 

'We haven't had too many meetings yet, but from what Buck's worked on over the last three years, I think it'll be about getting better and continuing to push each other and ourselves to find new levels in our game. I feel like last year we tapped into our potential, which was really exciting, so I'm hoping we can just keep getting better because we know everyone else is getting better. So, if we can keep doing that, and keep focusing on what we're doing every day at the Club, that should hold us in a good position when the season comes around."