When it comes to sharing her love for football, Kara Donnellan doesn’t discriminate.

Almost every day, as a part of her job and in her role as Fremantle’s AFLW captain, she sees the positive effects sport can have on a person.

Donnellan’s day job involves working up in the Pilbara as part of the Swan Districts Football Club community development team called VSwans.

And three days a week, when she’s in the city, Donnellan is in prison.

Not to 'do time', but to help others who are.

As a coach of two prison football teams, Donnellan helps instil a sense of pride in young men who have battled to find their way in life. 

As a guest on hit92.9 host Heidi Anderson's podcast Real Heidi, Donnellan spoke about her prison team with as much pride as she talks about her Freo side.

“You kinda can’t think like it’s a prison and they’re prisoners,” Donnellan said.

“I treat them like they should be, proper human beings, which they are.

“They’re all my big brothers, so I love them to death.”

One of Donnellan’s proudest moments came in round two of the inaugural season, when one of her former players came to see Fremantle’s first ever-home game against Brisbane at Fremantle Oval.

“One of the boys had got out a couple months before our first home game. He was on the fence and telling everyone how I was his coach and how proud he was,” Donnellan said.

“That’s why I love what I do. They’re all very proud and I obviously get quite proud when they get jobs on the outside.

“These little things that aren’t big for us, but are really big for them.”

To Donnellan, sport, and especially football, plays an important role in so many people’s lives.

But despite doing everything to help as many people play the game as possible, she frequently has to deal with those who think that she shouldn’t be playing the game at all.

“I suppose for us girls, you can’t listen to all the negativity that’s thrown up there,” Donnellan said.

“There always will be the critics that don’t like what you do, and the old school people who think footy is a male sport.”

When asked by Heidi what she says to people who don’t think women should be playing football, Donnellan replied with the same ethos she lives by.

“I don’t think another human being has the right to tell someone they can’t do something,” Donnellan said.

“I think there needs to be more education around it and it comes back to equality. Everyone deserves equal opportunities in everything.

“We’re living in the 21st century. I’d challenge people like that to come down and watch a game.”

But when running out onto the ground, Donnellan isn’t driven to prove her detractors wrong. She’s driven to set an example for the next generation.

“People don’t think about, that in the past, it was (mostly) young boys who picked up a footy,” Donnellan said.

“Now we have girls doing that at ages two or three and going into Auskick, whereas some of us didn’t have that opportunity back in the day."

While Donnellan has an open mind when coaching football to those she feels deserve a second chance, she hopes that others will sit back and allow women to have a chance at all. 

“At the end of the day, in society, everyone deserves an opportunity to do what they want and do what they love,” Donnellan said. 

“So I’d challenge people like that to have an open mind.”

You can listen to the full episode of “Real Heidi” here.

Fremantle's first game of the AFLW season is on Sunday against the Western BUlldogs at VU Whitten Oval.