With 48 young women from across the country, and even overseas, gathering in Melbourne for the 2019 AFLW draft combine, the tension is tangible as these potential players, all hoping to fulfil their football dreams, are put through their paces.
For the highly-rated Georgia Patrikios from Calder Cannons/Vic Metro, emotions are plentiful and mixed in the lead-up to the draft. “Excitement, nerves,” she tells Guardian Australia at the MCG. “I just want to get it over and done with.” Yet Patrikios should expect to be taken early given she has a strong football background and took out the MVP for 2019 Under-18s National Championships.
“It wasn’t until AFLW came around that I realised this could be something that I could do one day,” she says. It is likely Patrikios’s dream of playing football at the highest level will soon become a reality, with her club of choice, Carlton, a possible destination. With the Blues having pick two, she could well join close friend and pick three in the 2018 draft, Maddy Prespakis.
“Maddy is someone I’ve met through football and has been through everything I’m going through in this process so she’s been someone really reliable to get advice from or talk to when I need to,” Patrikios says.
The focus during the combine is on showing what these players have to bring to the field in 2020 – which will see 14 AFLW teams represented for the first time – but they are well aware of the wider impact they can have as potential representatives for women in sport at the national level.
The skilful Nikia Webber from Gippsland Power/Vic Country says her broader passion for women and girls playing football stems from her having to persuade her parents to let her play when she was young.
“My love of footy originated from watching my brother play,” she says. “I’d watch him play and I talked to my dad about it [playing] and he was against it. He didn’t want me to play at all. But I just kept nagging and nagging and he finally gave in. I do work placement at Gippsland Power and spend a lot time with Tyla Hanks [drafted at pick six to Melbourne in 2018], going out to schools and to clinics for the girls and try to get them involved by bringing them all together and telling them ‘girls can do this’.”
For Mia King, the only Tasmanian to participate in this year’s combine albeit in a limited capacity due her recovery from a MCL injury, being drafted to North Melbourne so she can stay in Tasmania is important. But significantly, so too is her capacity to be a role model for other Indigenous female footballers.
“You wouldn’t look at me and think ‘oh she’s Indigenous’, so I’d really like to show people that it doesn’t matter what you look like, you can still be a role model,” King says. “I probably haven’t talked about my Indigenous background a lot and it’s hard because I don’t know a lot about my culture – my dad was adopted – but through the trips I’ve got to be on through the AFL Woomeras Program to places like Kakadu, I’ve learnt a lot more about my culture too which has been really good.
“I’ve really looked up to players like Eddie Betts and Adam Goodes. And [Essendon VFLW Captain] Courtney Ugle. She was my Woomeras coach, and I’ve really looked up to her over the years.”
Gabrielle Newton who captained the Northern Knights and played for Vic Metro is another top prospect in this year’s draft pool. A natural leader, Newton has the potential to go pick one, which belongs to the Western Bulldogs whose newly appointed coach, Nathan Burke, also coached Newton at Vic Metro.
“Being here, you realise how big a possibility this is, and I’ve been reflecting a lot on how just a few years ago there was no pathway, and now I could be at an AFLW club in under a month and that’s so crazy to think about,” Newton says. “It’s so exciting.”
Speedy Vic Metro winger Marguerite Purcell has found personal inspiration in Carlton star forward Tayla Harris, who was immortalised in bronze last month, as she looks forward to what might be next in her football journey.
“I think she’s redefined what it means to be a woman in this environment in how she has stood up and been so strong,” Purcell says. “That’s why I love her so much because she makes me feel empowered as a woman. Because we’re awesome and we can do this. And the statue is a cherry on top. She’s really given me the confidence to think it doesn’t really matter what people say if I believe in myself.
It is a sentiment shared by forward Cleo Saxon-Jones who knows from playing multiple sports that there can be criticism that comes with it. “It sucks that it still happens,” she says. “The people who are saying these things, they have women in their lives and it’s just not right. I try to take it all in my stride and use it as motivation in a way, but it still sucks that it’s there.”
As the 2019 draft combine wraps and recruiters make the decisions that will change the futures of their clubs and these young women’s lives, the AFL are yet to set a fixture or provide a strategic plan for the future of the competition itself.
Yet not only are these women are prepared to not only put university, careers or opportunities in other sports on hold for this code, they are already passionate ambassadors for it.
