Western Bulldogs skipper Ellie Blackburn has detailed her first game back in the AFLW competition after her bout with COVID-19 earlier in the season.
Speaking on The W with Sharni and Sam podcast, Blackburn discussed the difficulty of returning to the elite level after being infected when the virus swept through the Bulldogs camp earlier this year.
"To start off with, I did everything I could to avoid getting COVID," Blackburn said.
"I thought the only place I wouldn't get it was at footy, so I was pretty much just at home, footy and that was basically it.
"And then the place that I thought was the safest ended up being where everyone caught it."
At the height of the outbreak at Whitten Oval in the opening stages of the season, up to half of the Bulldogs' list of 30 players had Covid-19. The club was forced to reschedule their first three matches of the season due to player unavailability.
"My head felt like it was going to explode, it was so hot and [I had] the headaches and all that came with it," Blackburn said about her symptoms.
"Mine were the fatigue and the energy levels completely gone.
"There were days where I tried to get out of bed and then I just couldn't, so I just laid in bed all day."
Blackburn returned to the competition during the Bulldogs' Round 4 loss to the Giants, where she struggled with breathlessness and other ongoing symptoms.
"You can't even do the warm-up without having to stop and try [to] take some deep breaths," she said.
"It was a real battle, and that first game back was, to be honest, a horrible experience.
"I really, really struggled throughout that game. I just felt like my body gave out on me.
"It was just trying to get that one deep breath in … it felt like I couldn't get that in throughout the game,
"And there were times where I just looked at the bench and thought, 'Oh my God, that's so far away', like, 'How am I actually going to make it to the bench?'"
"I felt like I couldn't run, I couldn't move my legs, I couldn't get a deep breath in.
"So I hope nobody experiences that … the girls that can bounce back straight after it — I'm so jealous and completely in awe of what they're able to do.
"It's impressive if players can bounce back immediately from it."
With the AFLW forced to compress the fixture to due Covid rescheduling, some teams are now faced with the prospect of playing more than one match a round. The Giants, St Kilda, Western Bulldogs, Brisbane Lions and Gold Coast will all play three matches in two rounds to ensure the completion finishes on time.
The Western Bulldogs will next face Geelong on Friday February 18 before heading to Queensland to play a makeup match against Gold Coast.