It’s been turbulent year for one of women’s football’s most recognisable faces.

Over the past 12 months Sarah Perkins has reached the peaks of what football has to offer.

In 2018 her VFLW club Hawthorn won the premiership as did her AFLW club Adelaide in 2019.

Read: VFLW season review: Defenders

But for Perkins, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing.

The key-forward fell out of favour with the Adelaide selection committee and wasn’t selected to play in the AFLW grand final.

Instead she watched on whilst her close friends played in front of 53,000 fans, the largest crowd in female football history.

Further bad news was to come when at the end of the season she was told there was no longer a place for her on Adelaide’s list.

Instead of giving up, the 26-year-old used her most recent experiences to as a motivation to reconnect with the game she fell in love with as a kid.

Perkins used this VFLW season at Hawthorn to start enjoying football again.

“It was a tough day, a really tough day,” said Perkins reflecting on the AFLW grand final earlier this year.

“Obviously I would have loved to have played in another grand final and for it to be in Adelaide in front of 53,000 people. That would have been an occasion that I would have loved to be a part of.”

“Yeah, then it was heartbreaking to be delisted,” said Perkins.

“I think I put myself in that position so I completely understand the club and where they came from, I wasn’t enjoying footy and struggling with things off the field, which didn’t help.”

Coming back to Hawthorn Perkins was feeling low in confidence.

“I really didn’t think that anyone else believed in me so I started doubting myself.”

“Recovering from ankle surgery coming back here was tough as well because it was really frustrating.

“It (the surgery) didn’t go to plan, I had to wait a bit longer to play and yeah by the time I did play my first game against Williamstown I was probably really hard on myself.

“It took a couple of weeks to get into the swing of things to just realise that I probably needed to enjoy my footy before I made any decisions going forward.”

Perkins spent some time chatting to Hawthorn’s VFLW development coach Yul Mustapha to try and reignite her passion.

“Yul said if I’m running around like a five-year-old kid with a smile from ear to ear then I do play my best footy and yeah I guess it was good because I was able to do that at training and that led into game days.

“You know getting a bit of help off the field helped with my confidence and the little things that I can do to just trigger being out there and getting back into a game and not being so hard on myself.”

Perkins had an excellent second half of the season, including two three goal outings in her last four games.

With a strong finish to her VFLW campaign Perkins is considering whether to throw her hat in the ring again and apply for the AFLW draft in October.

“I’m hoping to obviously be a bit fitter by the time the draft comes around and really work my butt off to get back into good shape so if some luck does fall my way and I do find myself back on an AFL list and I’m still feeling in a good headspace I’m ready to go.

“If I can just keep fit and healthy up until the draft and then an AFLW pre-season or just stay fit and healthy for a VFLW pre-season I’m pretty happy either way.”