Olympia Valance is kicking goals in all areas of her life

IT’S BEEN quite the year for Olympia Valance and she’s craving a holiday when we chat. A proper beach holiday with sun, sand and a cocktail in her hand.

Essendon making the AFL finals had put a spanner in her grand plans. In a case of life absolutely imitating art — “I’ve gone full method acting”, Olympia laughs — the Bombers’ ruckman is her boyfriend Tom Bellchambers, you see.

“I’ve got mixed feelings about this finals fiasco ‘cos it’s ruining my holiday plans — but I’m trying to be supportive,” she tells Watch during the last week of filming the second instalment of Ten’s Playing for Keeps.

“I haven’t seen sun in a year. If I don’t sit on a beach with a cocktail in my hand pretty soon … I’m going to full Tahlia out.”

Tahlia, as in her savvy entrepreneur with a huge social media following and a penchant for outrageous fashion character, that she’s loved reprising in this second serving of Ten’s delicious drama. Has she found the scripts are telling tales quite close to the truth?

“I think, obviously, it’s pretty hilarious the turn of events, and we do do things that are quite factual,” Olympia laughs. “I think we’ve done a really good job, but what we do is incredibly dramatised.”

It could have been high drama when the 26-year-old switched allegiances from her stepdad’s (Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock’s Ross Wilson) beloved St Kilda to Tom’s Essendon. Fortunately it wasn’t because, as she tells us, everyone in her extended family barracks for different teams.

“I wasn’t fully attached to St Kilda, but now I’m heavily invested in Essendon,” Olympia says,

“Look, I just took out the white and now I’m just red and black. They’re my favourite colours anyway, so it wasn’t too much of an adjustment.”

The gorgeous brunette certainly shares Tahlia’s love of fabulous fashion and standing out at the footy, but at home she’s content to don sportswear and trackies. She often heads to set in her PJs, and back home in her sleepwear. Perfect attire for the rather gruelling schedule this time around, filled with a tonne of night shoots.

“The night shoots really throw you — you might start in the morning but don’t finish ‘til midnight,” Olympia says. “And then by the time you get home, you’ve had about 17 coffees and so you are absolutely wired and then you’ve got to get up at 5am. You never get your full night’s sleep and then you have to do do it all again, it’s really thrown me this season.”

So, while it wasn’t necessarily all fun and games, it was joyful getting the gang back together.

When we last saw Tahlia, Kath (Madeleine West), Jessie (Isabella Giovinazzo), Maddy (Annie Maynard) and Paige (Cece Peters), most of their relationships were in tatters. But, obviously, when the show returned last week they are all still playing a huge part in the fictional Southern Jets Football Club. There’s also a new star recruit Liam Flynn (Ben Chapple) and a troublesome WAG (Jess Bush).

Tahlia’s living solely on paid sponsorship. She and Connor (Jackson Gallagher) have quite the friendly competition about who has won their break-up. The break-up precipitated by discovering he was having an affair with her best friend, the coach’s wife Kath.

There does, however, seem to be an uneasy truce this season.

“Look she hasn’t 100 per cent forgiven her,” Olympia explains. “It’s hard to forgive such a betrayal from someone you classified as your best friend, your sister, even. But, she has put it behind her for the sake of the other girls. I can’t really say too much. There’s a united front. But we’ll see how it all pans out.”

Meanwhile, Madeleine’s Kath has her eyes on a greater prize this season — a seat on the board.

“I’ve really enjoyed seeing Kath diversify into a completely different role this season,” she says. “This is a woman who was instrumental in the running of the club. She was the coach’s wife, a facilitator and nurturer, teaching the boys how to be men, teaching them how to set up a home. Now this woman, who doesn’t have a high degree of education, is taking on a role that’s very significant that requires quite serious strategies and we see Kath flourish and come into her own. She understands the human condition and how to manipulate it and that’s really exciting for me.

“I’ve always wanted to be a strong proponent of rights for women and, in the aftermath of #metoo movement, this is a mode of emancipation and showing a glimpse into a world – the last, great bastion of chauvinism.”

Madeleine dedicated hours in her off season to researching how it would be being a woman moving into a man’s world, spending time with club presidents and big business CEOs. And she’s taken inspiration for Kath this season from Western Bulldogs vice president Kylie Watson and former deputy prime minister Julie Bishop.

“Both have a unique leadership style – they get the job done but are also unapologetically feminine and proponents of great fashion,” she tells Watch. “They’re real role models for the modern woman in power.”

There are also rumblings the Southern Jets will need to field a women’s team. “I think the next step is to usher in a women’s team,” Madeleine says. “ Realistically to be operational in this day and age and attract sponsorship and to capture the heart of the nation — it needs to have males and females on its board. And it needs a female team.”

Will we see the high-maintenance Kath don the boots? “Oh, God I wish, but it’s tough getting her into her yoga lycra with the amount of stuff she’s got going on at the moment,” Kath says. “I’m amazed she gets anything done.”

It’s almost on par with Madeleine’s own life. She wrapped an acting and directing stint on Neighbours a mere “handful of weeks” ahead of Playing For Keeps Season 2. ’ She’s a passionate volunteer, not to mention a mum-of-six.

“It’s definitely very intense, but it’s a wonderful way to work, to trip from one job to the next,” Madeleine says. “And as much as it’s meant being away from my kiddies, which is not ideal at all, I like, I hope that I’m providing a positive role model for them. You don’t necessarily have to subscribe to the cliched role as a mother. You can still do good work and make a contribution. It shows them if you’ve got a dream, anything is possible.”

Olympia controversially fell short of achieving her dream of taking home this year’s Dancing With The Stars mirror ball trophy. She graciously thanks Watch when we suggest she was robbed and should have been there at the end. The upside was she’s now the fittest she’s ever been.

“I go through stages where I’m motivated and stages where I’m like ‘you know what I will have that half a bottle of wine and eat those Nandos wraps,” she reveals. “I’m always about balance. I’m really good at working towards a goal and then forgetting about it. After Dancing, I loved the feeling of being fit so I kept it up — working out and eating well.”

Olympia admits she really struggled after leaving the reality dance competition — going from training for hours every day to too much time on her hands before Playing for Keeps.

“You’re in such a bubble and that’s all you know and then it gets taken away from you when you’re least expecting it,” she says. “You’re like ‘Oh s--t, now I’ve got to go back to normal life. What do I do today?’ It really was a bit of a head---- and I think I was a little bit depressed after it.”

She managed to get her groove back, thanks to a new hobby – renovating her apartment. “I was spending lots of money on my house which was not necessarily ideal. But retail therapy always eases the pain.”

There isn’t much down time in Olympia’s future – she’s already lined up two new roles.

“It has been non-stop since Playing For Keeps wrapped and I really can’t complain,” she says.

“It is always hard in this industry because you don’t know when your next job is going to come along.”

Seems another serve of rest and relaxation will be a long time between drinks.

PLAYING FOR KEEPS, WEDNESDAY, 8.40PM, TEN