Moree teenager Lauren Appleby has her eyes set on being drafted to the AFLW as she trains at the Sydney Swans Academy.
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00:00I'd love to, you know, be one of the best players in the AFL Derby.
00:03I'd love to be drafted one day and it's a goal of mine especially coming from more of a remote area.
00:10It just makes it 10 times harder and even 10 times more, I suppose, of a goal.
00:18And I just love to make the family back home proud.
00:21From Moree to Moorpark, Lauren Appleby travels eight hours to play AFL in the Sydney Swans Academy.
00:30My flight would usually be just over an hour and a half and by car it's about eight hours.
00:35For Lauren, a weekend game of footy is a three-hour drive away in Tamworth.
00:40Well, at home we don't even have AFL posts put up at all.
00:44We don't have anything like that.
00:46So training at home has to be done all by myself and with my own motivation.
00:51The 17-year-old keeps up her training with her homemade goalposts.
00:55Dad put up some posts in the backyard for me to aim at and that's my training.
01:01That's probably the only post that are in town.
01:05The talented athlete is starring in a TikTok series,
01:08Youngbloods, which is documenting young athletes journeys to elite sports.
01:13Lauren, take two.
01:15Oh no.
01:17That's a motocross track there.
01:18Over that way.
01:19Over that way.
01:20Good job.
01:21Now have a sleep.
01:23The reality in the last 10 years at the academy, we've taken 12 to 15 players.
01:28You're sharing the exact same grounds and training fields
01:31with the professionals, the people that are, you know, getting paid to play the game.
01:35I'd love to be able to encourage other people from around
01:39more remote areas to be able to chase their dreams and,
01:42you know, put your mind to something and be able to do it.