COLLINGWOOD veteran Bri Davey has admitted thoughts of an injury-forced retirement crossed her mind as she battled a mysterious ankle issue last year.

For so long a staple of the AFLW competition – even while injured – Davey was well and truly sidelined in 2025, eventually ruled out for the season without playing a game, and losing the captaincy to boot.

Davey has managed just 50 games over her 10 seasons in the League. By comparison, North Melbourne's Erika O'Shea has recorded her half-century in just four seasons.

"There were definitely moments. Naturally, every athlete goes through it at some point, where you doubt, whether it's your body or playing ability or whatever it is," Davey told AFL.com.au.

"For me, it was 'are we going to figure out what's wrong with this foot? Is this potentially going to be the undoing?' The hardest thing about it is you work so hard, you stick to the rehab schedule, you're doing everything you can, and I wasn't seeing much return for that."

Davey had been either a captain or vice-captain in all her previous nine seasons at Collingwood and Carlton, but the Pies opted for a different direction last year.

"It was tough at the time, because it felt like it was due to circumstances beyond my control – my body – that was how things eventuated with captaincy. To be honest, Ruby [Schleicher] has done such an incredible job with the leaders around her, Jordy Allen, Lauren Butler and Mikala Cann last year. We had some incredible leaders step up and they've done a great job, and Ruby will continue to do a great job," Davey said.

"While it was a bit of a shift for me, at the same time, it gave me a bit of an opportunity to hone in on my rehab and getting myself right. For a lot of years at Carlton and Collingwood I'd been in leadership or captained, and that can be a really selfless role sometimes, you have to put your energy everywhere. Whereas I could channel and focus my energy towards my long and hard rehab. 

"It was like an identity shift, because I'd done it for so long at Carlton and Collingwood. I'd also done lots of leadership things prior to that in soccer as well. It was just a real shift. At the time, it was adjusting."

It was an ankle injury that started as a syndesmosis tear, and then deteriorated from there, but Davey wasn't tempted to try ballet, as coach Sam Wright did to overcome his own foot issues during his AFL career.

"This was a really difficult rehab. I've obviously done ACLs and stuff like that in the past, but this one was really difficult, because we didn't have a diagnosis properly for a little while. It was a really mysterious injury. That was the hardest thing – we didn't exactly know what we were dealing with, we knew it was in the foot/ankle area, and everyone's trying so hard around you to figure out what it is, but feeling like you're in the dark for a lot of it was really tough," she said.

"My training is going to be loaded a bit differently. I am 31 now, I'm being called 'fossil' by the girls, so that's awesome. Monday and Friday might be on-legs, and Wednesday is off-legs, and that will get me through pre-season. 

"I definitely haven't done any ballet, and I would be the worst ballerina ever, so it's best for everyone if I don't put on ballet shoes. I've taken up Pilates this year – it's not specific for my foot, but it definitely helps the rest of my body, which then helps my running gait, and it all links up."

As to the Bri Davey we'll see back on the field, there's every chance she'll be charging out of the goalsquare at Vic Park, rather than the centre square.

"A bit of both, maybe, we'll see how we go. We'll get through this pre-season and see where the tank's at. We know how much the game has grown and how fast it is, how much of a running game it is now," she said.

"It'll be a matter of whether I can run out midfield minutes or spend a little more time forward to get me back into the swing of things. You'll see me in a little bit of both.

"I'm really excited to not just play, but I have high expectations of myself – without putting too much pressure on myself – I also want to be playing my best footy again, I don't want to just be playing."

Collingwood's AFLW season will officially kick off Saturday 15 August against Richmond at IKON Park.