And one for good luck - Gaby De Angelis joins the ‘State of Play’ podcast
07/06/2023
Gaby De Angelis sat down for episode twelve of the VFL/W’s ‘State of Play’ podcast following her fiftieth - well, fifty-first - game on the weekend.
‘I couldn’t be [happier] about it,’ she admitted when talking with the show’s hosts Joe Pignataro and Lucy Watkin, ‘I hadn’t been keeping count - when I heard the number I thought it was a pretty good achievement.’
She did confess, however, that she was in fact celebrating her fifty-first game for the Saints after losing track of the numbers along the way.
Luckily for Saints fans, Gaby was excited by the prospect of playing ‘fifty more games’ in the future. After a stellar twelve-disposal-and-three-goal performance against the Blues on Saturday, Gaby took time to reflect on her journey with the Saints and the team’s recent form;
“We’ve been working very hard so it’s good to see that growth …we’ve definitely moved some people around - it’s really the connection we have as a team that has been fostering our on field performance.”
And, after digging deep to find four consecutive wins, Gaby discusses how the team is utilising last year’s Grand Final loss to take their form to another level. She notes how reflecting on the loss continues to keep feeding into their drive, ambitions and goals for this year.
How have the Saints come into such good form? The simple answer would be wanting to get the win for Gaby’s fiftieth game. The long answer, though, provides greater insight;
“[We] have that trust within our lines, and within our teammates to get the job done,’ Gaby says, ‘people play their role and constantly work hard on and off the track .. we’ve got some really good leaders.”
When considering the remainder of the Rebel VFLW fixture, Gaby expresses that she’s ‘really looking forward to what the next few games have in store’, recognising that at this point of the season, ‘it’s absolutely anyone’s ballgame’ - a prospect that is ‘terrifying as a player’ but ‘very, very exciting for the competition.’
So, how does Gaby feel about their current form? ‘We’re happy to be sitting pretty at number one,’ she confesses;
"We can’t take anything for granted. We’ve worked very hard to be where we are at the moment, we cannot afford to take our foot off the pedal. We’ll continue to work hard, we don’t want things to change too much. We obviously have something that’s working at the moment so we want to keep our foot down, keep working hard, keep training hard and playing our game style which we know can get us goals and can win us games.”
During her chat on the ‘State of Play’ podcast, Gaby also discusses the importance of keeping the core Saints group together, reflecting on how it has helped the team to foster the strong connection which has seen their on-field teamwork prosper,
‘Ali Hynes and Tayla Kearns are pretty essential to fostering this culture that we have. No season is ever the same, [but] there’s respect, there’s trust and there’s team camaraderie’ - elements which Gaby credits her captains and coaches for cultivating.
Following the bye this week, Gaby admits that she ‘can’t wait to get back on the field’.
We can’t wait, either, to see her back in action. The Saints will be looking to cement their place in the finals, facing off against North Melbourne at Wilson Storage Trevor Barker Beach Oval on Saturday the 17th of June at 11am (AEST).
Written by Chloe Williams - Sandringham FC Media