The 27-year-old from Kurri Kurri is on the Sunshine Coast at a training camp this week for the Australian Outback women’s team in the hope of earning a start at the world titles next year.

The 163cm, 72kg strong safety and fellow Newcastle Cobra Julia Csanki are among more than 90 hopefuls training twice a day, learning playbooks, doing video analysis and playing in full-contact scrimmages.

Selectors will cut the squad to about 45 for the third edition of the women’s gridiron world titles, which were dominated by the US in the first tournament in 2010 and again in 2013. 

Hayne’s transformation from NRL star to San Francisco 49ers NFL player captivated the Australian sporting public last year, but Quist didn’t see any of it.

“For me, particularly, I think it’s fantastic that he does, but I don’t even own a TV, I don’t watch NFL, I don’t watch football, I just play it, but it certainly has helped with recruiting, especially for the [Cobras] men’s team,” Quist told the Newcastle Herald on Friday from Queensland. “We had about 15 to 20 players turn up just because of Jarryd Hayne.”

Quist has played for Southern Beaches in Hunter women’s rugby for the past eight years and started playing American football four years ago.

She plays on offence and defence for the Cobras, who are short on players. She was the club’s defensive MVP in 2014 as a safety then offensive MVP last year as a running back in the NSW Gridiron League, but she plays only defence in the fledgling Australian set-up.

This week is her first time in a national training camp, and next year will be the first time Australia has sent a women’s team to the world championship.

“Last year I got MVP for offence. That was for running back, but my bread and bread butter is defence. Because of my size and aggression they want me on D,” she said. “For the Cobras I play both, so in the last three years I haven’t come off the field.”

Quist was considering playing for the fledgling Maitland women’s rugby team this season but is taking a year off to train exclusively for American football.

She is confident of beating out five other girls competing for the same position in the Outback squad.

“I’ve been doing a lot of training. I’m the strongest of the safeties, which gives me a massive advantage. I really feel like I’m going to get picked for that position.”

The US beat Canada 66-0 in the 2010 final without conceding a point in the tournament and beat them again, 64-0, in the 2013 decider.

Quist said it was intimidating to think about playing against the US team, but the Australians had recruited three American coaches to help them prepare. The imports include Jen Welter, who became the first woman to coach in the NFL when she joined the Arizona Cardinals as an assistant working with the club’s inside linebackers in the 2015 pre-season.

“It is a little bit, but we have coaches who have come over to train us, and we train exactly how they would coach the men.”

Quist said her rugby background had helped her gridiron to a point, but the two sports required “different athletic ability”.

“With rugby, especially being breakaway, I don’t stop. I am 40 minutes of go, go, go, whereas this is more precision, power, stop-start. I’m doing gridiron-specific power training. I’m also doing agility ladders and things like that, because you’ve got to have quick feet.”

Playing strong safety in American football requires speed, strength and the ability to read offensive plays.

“If the offence changes, we change, and you’ve got to do it quick, because you don’t want to give them that advantage.”

Quist said she had been inspired to transform her body six years ago by the players around her.

“Having different role models, when you’re playing sport, we call them the big dogs, when you look at those girls, and they can be big and they can be quick. Nothing can beat big and quick. I was like, ‘I want that. I want to be that. I know what I need to do to get that, so I’m going to train for that.’”

The four-team NSW women’s league, which starts after the winter rugby season and ends in December, is changing from a seven-a-side competition to nine-a-side this year, and Quist said the Cobras needed more players.

They had only 15 last year, but Quist hopes a recruiting drive in women’s rugby will make a difference.

“The rugby season finishes when our season starts, so we’re hoping to share players, and we have encouraged some of our players to go and play rugby in the off-season, and some of them have and loved it, and we also want to take some back.

“So give a little, take a little and get a few of the rugby girls to come and give gridiron a go, because a lot of people use sport for different reasons. 

“Some people, if they’re not playing sport, they don’t feel like they really belong. If they’re doing it the whole year round, they’ve got a family of people and a support network.”