Sydney Swans AFLW recruit Lulu Pullar had a busier off-season than most.
After a trade from North Melbourne to Sydney on the AFLW trade deadline day, Pullar took up a job working in the emergency department of Alice Springs Hospital before pre-season at her new club kicked off in May.
Speaking on this week's podcast episode of "More than Footy", Pullar said working in remote Australia as a doctor was something she had always wanted to do, and the off-season period had provided the perfect opportunity.
"I was out there working in the emergency department, just as an experience for my medical career," Pullar said.
"I guess I've always wanted to work in remote medicine, but specifically working among the Indigenous demographic and practising those sort of remote medicine skills.
"The off-season presents a great opportunity for me to go out and upskill myself as a doctor and I sort of earmarked working in central Australia for a little while, the timing probably wasn't exactly perfect having moved to a new club, but it's always a good opportunity for me to get out there and just become a better doctor."
During her time in Alice Springs, the utility kept up with her training program and, in doing so, identified an opportunity to help create a pathway for women and girls in the region to pursue their footballing dreams.
"While I was out there, I was really fortunate enough to train with a local academy out there, they're called the Red Tails Pink Tails Right Tracks program, who (Swans teammate) Sarah Steele-Park started her footy career with," Pullar said
"I was just training with them to essentially keep up to date with my skills and get some footy in, and I guess I saw a real market and a need to create some sort of pathways for young, remote Centralians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
"There weren't a lot of pathways out there, there weren't enough resources and opportunity, and I think in a region that is quite challenging socially, it's very remote, then there's a lot of challenges, I sort of thought, well how could I combine my skillset to at least facilitate some opportunities for some of these local women?."
Pullar created the "Dreamtime Academy" and, with the help of fellow AFLW stars, delivered a week-long football academy in the red centre.
"So we started together with the Red Tails Pink Tails, we ran a four-day women and girls AFL clinic in Alice Springs and in one of the remote communities, Hermannsburg," she said.
"We flew out about six AFLW players from a few different clubs, Sarah (Steele-Park) came out, a few Hawthorn players and a few Brisbane Lions players and ran some high-performance sessions, ran some community sessions and some school sessions as well.
"So all in the mission to empower dreams and empower opportunities for these young people so they can go out, feel capable of achieving their dreams, just like everyone who has played for the Sydney Swans.
"It sort of turned into something really exciting and quite big, it was really well received, and so we've got some exciting plans for 2026 as well."
The 26-year-old said the sessions had been a great success and she already had plans for next year.
"We'll be running camps every year out there, then we're also looking at running a game at the end of the year as well," Pullar said
"Really excitingly, we'll be launching out a virtual academy as well, which is essentially an online platform for participants to regularly engage with high-performance programs, whether it's athletes, sports dietitians, being able to learn from high performers themselves, both on the field, off the field, in corporate spaces.
"And then building out sort of our scholarship program as well, which will connect participants with opportunities with employment and education as well."
Pullar joined her new teammates in Sydney in May and finished second in the team's 1.5k time-trial at the start of pre-season.
With the Swans set to open their season against Richmond at North Sydney Oval on August 15, Pullar said she was keen to get herself up to speed with her new side as quickly as possible.
"We're week three now, so well and truly started, and I'd say the girls are flying, it's been a really fun start to the preseason, obviously, off the back of a big off-season for the majority of the team, which is awesome.
"It's been good, I've had a few setbacks with injuries in the last couple of years, unfortunately, I'm sort of carrying a bit of an injury at the moment, but sort of building back up now, which is really exciting.
"I'm just trying to get up to speed with our game plan and sort of utilise all the resources around me, coaches, the facilities themselves, you know, any bit of vision.
"We just have so many great opportunities to learn and get better and you can really feel that among this group, so it's just been a really hot start."
Listen to the full podcast episode with Lulu here.
