But it wasn’t always like that.

When she first took to the field against the opposite gender, she was able to roam around as she pleased.

“At the start, they didn’t man me up,” she recalled. “They just thought ‘Let her get the ball’.

“They realised soon that it wasn’t a good decision.”

Now the males respect the 18-year-old when she takes them on in the Warrnambool Wolves’ Wednesday night competition.

“It’s a lot tougher and the games are a lot faster so you have to be a lot smarter,” she said.

“I like the challenge.”

This weekend Gray will clash against her own gender in the women’s South West Games carnival at Harris Street Reserve.

Eight teams will contest the games, with Gray lining up in the young Wolves side.

The club will also enter a masters side.

“It’s good because normally us girls have to travel to get more competition,” Gray said.

“Us girls have won (the carnival) for the last five or so years so hopefully we keep that up.”

Teams will travel from as far as Mount Gambier and Ballarat to compete in Sunday’s tournament.

“Normally Mount Gambier are pretty good,” Gray said. “We have a bit of a rivalry with them because sometimes we play each other in a friendly match.

“They’ll probably be hard.”

The teenager conceded she had not been training as much as she would like due to year 12 commitments.

She is in the midst of exams, sitting an English one today while next week’s schedule includes maths, chemistry and physics.

“I might be doing study in between games,” she laughed.

Gray hopes to begin an architecture degree in either Geelong or Melbourne next year, meaning she will leave the Wolves and play for either her university team or perhaps a premier league side.

She was pleased that more young girls in the south-west were choosing to play soccer.

“There’s a group of us who have always played together but some of us are going so it’s good to know the women’s competition will keep going,” she said.

Action on Sunday will start at 10am.

It will follow on from Saturday, when 24 men’s teams will battle it out for the South West Games title.