Source : ABC NEWS
When prop Mille Elliott runs out for the Blues in State of Origin I in Newcastle on Thursday, she’ll have a fresh new supporter in the stands.
Baby Gigi is seven-and-a-half months old and will be there, watching her mum take to the field in New South Wales colours for what is her first match of rugby league since giving birth.
“It’s such a massive honour,” Elliott told ABC Sport Daily on walking straight back into the Origin set up.
“This is a winning team from last year who won the series and they played exceptionally, absolutely dominated in the first two games and got the job done.
“I knew that I had my work cut out for me.”
The concept of easing her way back into competitive action appears to be somewhat lost on Elliott.
Millie Elliott is back in rugby league — and back in the Blues side. (AAP Image: Dan Himbrechts)
Instead of taking a slow route back through the lower grades to get back used to the rough and tumble of top level rugby league, Elliott is leaping straight into the Origin cauldron with the defending champion Blues.
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“[It’s] definitely no easy task, that’s for sure,” Elliot said.
“It’s a shame that we don’t get to play any footy before Origin, but that’s just the way it is at the moment.
“We’re lucky that we’ve got three games, that we’ve got an actual Origin series, that’s been the biggest thing that we can have.
“One day, in the future, we’ll get some games earlier, but we’ve had quite a decent training block leading into the Origin series and we’ve played games against each other … I was also lucky enough to go over to Vegas earlier in the year and play in the Nines competition with the Roosters.
“So I feel like I have eased my way in, but Origin’s just a whole new beast, and it goes up another level, even to NRLW, once you’ve settled in and played a few rounds.
“I haven’t played footy in 18 months, but not many people have played in the last six months anyway.
“So [we’re] kind of all back to square one, I guess. That’s how I’m telling myself to get through it.”
Elliott admitted that returning to play as a mother was “quite an adjustment” to her previous way of going about things.
Getting back into easy training just three or four weeks postpartum, Elliott said coming back after a significant lay off was just like coming back after any other return.
Millie Elliott took time to get back into full contact. (Getty Images: Cameron Spencer)
“It’s like overcoming a significant injury when you’re coming back postpartum,” she said.
“There’s a lot of prehab and exercises and rehab and physios that you have to see, and I’m lucky enough that I’ve had that support and I’ve been able to get back to here and I’m feeling really fit and confident.”
And yet, with the NRLW still a part-time pursuit, she says that she would have to keep a fair few plates spinning in the air at any one time anyway, so adding a baby to the mix wasn’t as daunting as it might be.
“As a part-time athlete for us as rugby league players and as women, you’ve got to juggle a lot of things on the side anyway,” Elliott said.
“So the adjustment has been not too bad I guess.”
That has been helped by having her mother move into the family home for the season to help care for Gigi while she and husband — South Sydney forward Adam Elliott — continued their careers.
Despite the four-time NRLW premiership winner having that support — crediting the Roosters and the multi-year contracts on offer from the NRLW as key factors in deciding now was the time to have a child — Elliott did admit that there were times during her time away from the game that returning to the top daunted her.
“There was definitely some early days, postpartum, where you think, how the hell am I [going to do that again]?” Elliott said.
“I was watching the girls play footy and I thought, ‘oh my God, that looks painful,’ just the hits and the fitness and the up and down and the week-to-week stuff.
“And then, also, priorities have to shift.
“You have to be quite selfish to be an athlete and you have to spend a lot of time away from your family, whether that’s training, late nights, physios, rehab … there’s so much that goes into that.”
Regardless, when she steps out onto the field on Thursday in Newcastle and takes her first hit up, she knows that she’ll be ready.
“It’s a part of who I am,” Elliott said.
“It’s what I love to do, play footy.
“I’ve been thinking about, as athletes, we think about our sport every day and that’s been something that I’ve been carrying with me.
“This is a big reason to want to get out there on Thursday. The girls have won the shield last year. It’s not going to be an easy feat. [The Blues] Haven’t won in Newcastle yet and I’ve got my little Gigi girl in the stands watching.”
