WHILE the rest of the country has watched in awe as women's sport has taken great strides, Kirsty Lamb has experienced it firsthand across two sports, and helped to create magic moments in many others.

When Lamb was a sports-mad kid running round the north-east outskirts of Melbourne, she didn't see a future for herself in the industry, either on or off the field.

Fast-forward to the age of 30, and Lamb has played 79 AFLW games, as well as a total of 37 cricket one-day and T20 matches for Victoria and the Melbourne Renegades as an all-rounder.

Not only is she in the midst of a decorated dual sporting career at the highest level, but she is working off the field to help bring elite men's and women's sport to life.

At one point last year, Lamb was deep in Port Adelaide's maiden AFLW finals run – which involved back-to-back games in Melbourne – while working remotely to help organise logistics for the men's Australia v India test in Perth, the first of the series.

"I work for a company called Kojo Studios, which is quite a large business across Australia and New Zealand, and I work in the sports production arm of the business," Lamb told AFL.com.au.

"We run a heap of sports across the country – football, cricket, basketball, NRL, LIV golf – and I sit under the Cricket Australia banner. I work on Cricket Australia games for both men and women. We also run WBBL and BBL, the sports production side of it.

"The easiest way to describe it is when you go to a cricket game, and there's fireworks and music and a host doing an interview with the crowd, or an activation in between breaks, or the 'power surge' in the Big Bash, we put all that together with the client.

"My role is operations and logistics. For every Cricket Australia game, I look after everything from flights, accommodation, contract, pay, catering – across the country, last season was about 140 people in total."

This January saw the Australian women's cricket team play England in an Ashes test, the first women's test match at the MCG in over 75 years.

Coincidentally, Lamb herself had kicked two goals in her debut MCG outing just four months earlier, after the clash between the Western Bulldogs (her former side) and Port Adelaide was shifted from Whitten Oval to be played directly before the Dogs' men's elimination final.

Growing up playing cricket with Plenty Valley, and footy with Yarrambat and Diamond Creek, there was no way she saw herself being involved with both women's sports in one of the largest stadiums in the world.

"I think it shows a huge amount of progression in the (cricket) women's game, to now have the test match as part of their fixturing, then obviously playing on the biggest stadium as well," Lamb said.

"There's some similarities there with W and where AFLW is going as well. Cricket is probably a little bit ahead of footy in that regard, but it's obviously an international sport, whereas W is Australian.

"Playing on the MCG was one of the best experiences in my career, in the sense there hasn't been a lot of opportunities to play at the bigger venues, and it was also a double-header.

"I think I'd like to see that where our game goes in the future, and hopefully this season, now that there is a couple of rounds where there's going to be some crossover. By the second half of the game, there was over 20,000 at the MCG, and that was an incredible experience for both the Port and Bulldogs girls."

Lamb got involved in cricket's state pathways in her early teen years, and could see a clear path to the top. By contrast, when Lamb was 14 (2008), AFLW was still another eight years away, and wasn't even being spoken about as a possibility.

Now firmly entrenched in footy at the highest level, she has seen the difference increased pay and hours spent at the club has made. The development of talent pathways have fast-tracked the skill and "footy IQ" of young players entering the system, increasing the tactical nous of the entire group.

"When I was really little, I didn't even know women's football even existed. It did, and it wasn't far from home (Yarrambat), with Diamond Creek just around the corner," she said.

"I've always said I was a slightly better footballer than cricketer, but I naturally fell into cricket because there was an avenue to go down.

"As a kid, I wondered if I'd be a teacher or a police officer, but then obviously, sport took over. Once you start playing in some selected sides and naturally start to put more time and effort into your sport and see how far it takes you.

"Don't get me wrong, I loved watching my men's footy and I idolised Chad Cornes, but I never really thought or wondered what it would be like to be like him and play footy, because it just wasn't an option."

Lamb has always been either working or studying throughout her AFLW career, sometimes all three at once as she creeps towards finishing her MBA, a seven-year endeavour.

While there's part of her that would have liked to experience life as a full-time athlete, she's firmly aware of her post-football career.

"It's got its pros and cons, right? I mean, there's so much about it you need to make the absolute most of opportunities. 'You're a long time retired' is the mentality that I have, and you want to make the most of the experience for what it is," Lamb said.

"I've just been grateful that the games continue to progress over my career. And there's a part of me that's like, 'how cool to have been a part of it from the very start', and its progression over this period. I'm also excited to see where the game is in 10, 15, 20 years' time, when I'm well and truly out of it, and know so many of us played a role in the development of it.

"I put my other hat on, and I'm so lucky to have had so many life experiences having filled a number of roles or jobs over my playing career, and hopefully I leave the game in a really good position and are able to transition out of the game and find a job.

"The players now can come through and be a full-time athlete, and that's amazing, that's what we've always dreamed of. But then having that balance away from footy, that's something I've been very conscious of."

Lamb was part of an astonishing Port Adelaide run last year, that saw the developing side record a rattling eight-game winning streak.

The Power won both their elimination and semi finals – the latter an absolute nail-biter against Hawthorn – but crashed out at the hands of eventual premier North Melbourne.

"It was awesome. It was so much fun. I think at the start of the year, we set out that we wanted to play finals, and we did a hell of a lot of work in the off-season on our fitness and our strength to give us a good run into pre-season. Then you can start doing match simulation really early in pre-season," Lamb said.

"We want to be a team that plays finals consistently, so we've got to go to work again.

"And obviously with the way the fixture works, you would think we'll play most of the top eight sides this year, which wasn't the case last year. So it's another really good challenge for our young group."