I LOVE pulling on the orange socks. 

There is no other club that is doing anything like this. It’s a point of difference for us as a football club: the fact that everyone - and I mean everyone - at the Club takes it so seriously and is so proud of what we have with this initiative and this campaign is amazing.

‘What does Carlton Respects mean to me? What does it mean to the players?’ They’re big questions.

It’s that feeling of representing so much more than just yourself and your teammates. You’re representing Simone O’Brien. You’re representing every other woman who has been the victim of domestic violence. You’re representing the young kids who have been subjected to witnessing some pretty horrible things in their childhood. 

It’s so much bigger than you and the game that you’re playing in.

Our players are representing themselves and how far women have come in that space, but also how far we can continue to go to eradicate domestic violence and violence against women.

I wasn’t surprised by the level of investment from the whole football club, but I was completely heartened by it. I’m so proud of it.

Anytime we do awareness-raising campaigns, it starts making your mind tick about why we’re doing things and what impact it can have out in the community.

It’s about what young girls and boys who are watching us and looking up to us are seeing and thinking when Patrick Cripps and Darcy Vescio is running around in a pair of orange socks.

When you see influential people in our club - starting with Mark [LoGiudice] and Cain [Liddle] at the very top -talking about these issues, I’m sure everyone starts thinking about how it impacts them and what they can do.

As players, we’re in such a privileged position in the footy club and how we’re viewed in the community. It’s our responsibility to carry the message on and try and make life better for other people outside of our four walls.

The bravery of people like Simone O’Brien is incredible, to tell their story to basically a bunch of absolute strangers.

It’s pretty confronting to hear those stories. It’s pretty raw to hear those stories. It’s hard not to be moved and think ‘What can I do?’.

When you have someone standing right in front of you that has been through that and lived that and they’re brave enough to tell their story, you can’t help but be invested in that person.

When Simone came and spoke with the boys late last year, Lochie O’Brien put his hand up to be a Carlton Respects ambassador. That’s a pretty powerful thing for a young guy who was so moved by the story that he just wanted to help in any way that he could.

I keep using the word ‘powerful’, but it is. It is so powerful to see that. People just want to help and our players are no different.

It’s not just the players, not just the AFLW team or not just the AFL team. We take the community program - and I’m saying ‘we’ as an entire football club - as importantly as we take anything else.

It’s not just a two-week thing, either. Leading into this round, the level of education and awareness certainly gets heightened, but this is a year-round issue. It’s all well and good to do it for two weeks of the year, but this community-wide problem is going on every week of the year. 

One of the strategic objectives of the Club outlined in The Carlton Way a couple of years ago is for Carlton Respects to become the most influential gender equality program in sport. It’s a cornerstone of the Club.

From a public point-of-view, they view the success of the Club in premierships and that’s fair enough — that’s what we’re here to do. Internally, however, success is measured on that and so much more.

It shows how important it is to the future direction of the football club. We’re not just going to achieve that strategic goal of being the most influential gender equality program in sport if we don’t have the support of every person inside the Carlton Football Club. It’s a pretty cool thing when everyone is driving towards the same goal, as well as all of the other strategic goals.

What I’ve learnt is how much of an influence our club can have on kids, the influence we can have on the next generation in schools and sporting clubs.

I’m so lucky to wear a number of different hats in this club, and one of those is being a member of the Community team. I feel like we, as a Community team, are so represented in so many elements of the Club on game day, except for someone actually being out there on the field.

I carry a great sense of responsibility when I’m on the ground to represent the values of the footy club, and Carlton Respects well and truly falls within that. I know I speak for the rest of the Community team when I say that this game is a big occasion for the footy club: it’s a big occasion for the playing group, but also the administrative staff that have so much to do with this initiative.

Carlton Respects goes so much beyond gender equality. It’s respectful relationships and respectful language and how we treat each other. It’s going out to nearly 7,000 kids in two years, it’s going out to schools every week of the year. It’s something that we take really seriously day to day. It’s something that we live by more so than anything else.

That’s not going to stop after the AFLW and AFL Carlton Respects rounds finish.

I know I speak on behalf of all the girls when I say that we have felt included from day one. The Club sought out the AFLW license from day one: they didn’t sit back and wait for everyone to get on board with it. They led it.

To make women as included as they possibly can, to be a big player in this space: from the get-go, that was really evident. It’s not putting a ceiling on what females can achieves in this industry.

All of a sudden, our club has a lot of females in influential positions — the thinking is changing and it is so cool to see that at our micro level.

The support that we’ve had from the footy club, from the ‘Pres’ all the way through, has been such an enormously positive experience for us.

To me, Carlton Respects is a celebration of all of that.

I can’t wait for the game. There are so many stories to be told. There are so many supporters in their orange clothing and flags which they bring along to games to show support in what we do in this space.

It’s going to be amazing.