ALLY Anderson won the game's highest individual honour last season and Brisbane's midfielder has not rested on her achievement, coming back a better athlete ahead of the 2023 season.
Anderson shocked the AFLW world by winning the competition best and fairest for season seven, beating more fancied rivals Monique Conti, Ebony Marinoff and Madison Prespakis to the gong.
The quietly spoken 29-year-old looked mildly shocked to be thrust into the spotlight, the season after her former teammate Emily Bates won the same award.
Following a three-month break to recharge mentally and physically, Anderson got to work on coming back better than ever.
"I was living with Orla O'Dwyer, who is our best runner on the team, so a lot of the pre-season running was me and her finding new runs around Brisbane and it was me trying to chase her basically, and it just naturally happened that I got better at running," Anderson said on the eve of the opening round.
Anderson turned heads at the Lions' pre-season 2km time trial, shaving 30 seconds off her already solid previous best time to catapult her into the top handful of runners on the team.
"I thought I was always average or just above average in running, so I was never thinking I could get too much better, but I did that work and it paid off," she said.
"I realise now there was a big hole there and it was something I could have improved earlier."
When Anderson runs out against Richmond at Brighton Homes Arena on Sunday afternoon, it will be the first time in her AFLW career she does so without Bates alongside her.
The duo had played all 66 of Brisbane's games before Bates' off-season move to Hawthorn.
Although it leaves a hole in the midfield, and one less recognised star for opponents to focus on, Anderson was confident the Lions had the personnel to cover.
"It's something we're obviously going to have to talk about and think about when we play," she said.
"It's just a matter of the team getting around each other and helping each other.
"If one (of her or Bates) got held down, the other one would pop up. That's the good thing about our midfield, we're so strong that if one is getting tagged or aren't having the best game, the rest of the midfield pops up."
"I feel like we have that really even spread."
The spread of talent includes Belle Dawes, the energetic dynamo who is set for the biggest increase in on-ball minutes alongside Anderson and Cathy Svarc.
Anderson said despite losing Bates, Greta Bodey and Jesse Wardlaw during the off-season, Brisbane's expectations were as high as ever as it looked to add to its 2021 premiership.
