By JARROD POTTER
TAKING her elite sport to two different codes, cricket and football all-rounder Chelsea Moscript loves her dual-life at the moment.
Chelsea Moscript, 20, originally from Leongatha, has been a mainstay in Dandenong Women’s Cricket Club for the last four seasons but only recently has she added footy to her sporting resume.
“It’s pretty good having a winter sport and a summer sport makes it a bit easier than having two summer sports or that sort of thing and it’s just about balancing between both,” Moscript said.
“It’s pretty special I suppose – there’s actually more and more girls coming through that are playing both sports, players like Emma Kearney and Jess Cameron, really setting the standard and that people can play footy and cricket at the same time.
“It’s an awesome experience to play both VFL and Premier Cricket … as a kid I was naturally going to play any sport that came up so it just fit in that I could play footy at some stage.”
She picked up a footy for the first time in 2015, after someone at university saw something in the wily midfielder and asked her to join Melbourne University’s football team.
“Football for me has only been happening for the last two years – never played it before, but just took it up,” Moscript said.
“Initially I went to Melbourne Uni to be a sports trainer but then they told me to come have a kick and said ‘oh you should play’ and it went from there … was a bit out of the blue but it just happened and I thought why not.”
She’s featured in nine VFL matches this season for Melbourne University and she is thrilled to run around in another elite code.
“Being able to play in this new VFL comp has been really exciting and it’s something that I never expected to be doing,” Moscript said.
“My footy knowledge was pretty much just from kicking it around with my brothers when I was younger and that’s just about all I knew about footy.
“Never even knew there was such a thing as women’s football, but to now be playing in the VFL is pretty cool.”
She’s had to put footy on hold for the time being though, with Moscript touring Japan and Samoa with Cricket Without Borders – an amazing opportunity to play, train and learn what it takes to work in the cricket world.
“Heading away to Japan for cricket – missing out on half of a football season because of that,” Moscript said.
“I’m heading over to Japan to be part of Cricket Japan with Cricket Without Borders and I’ll be running clinics and doing all that sort of stuff over there.
“From there I’m heading to Samoa for Cricket Without Borders and have the ICC East Asia Pacific tournament and I’ll be able to play for that and that will be a great pre-season hit-out for me before cricket back here starts up again.”
