Yesterday Box Hill Hawks VFLW player Gabby Collingwood positioned herself perfectly goalside of a pack to capitalise on her teammates’ fantastic inside work and kick a great goal.
The word freedom contains two syllables. The first syllable “free” points to joy spontaneity and creativity. The second syllable the suffix “-dom” means a state or condition. Being in a state or condition requires stability.
So the word freedom incorporates the idea of discipline.
Gabby and her Hawk teammates symbolize both.
Geoff Fox, July 7, 2025, Melbourne, Australia
On this day 80 years ago my father was involved in the last major battle of World War Two, the second Battle Of Balikpapan, in which 229 Australians died.
For me women’s footy is way better to look at than the men’s game.
Just look at the teamwork, skill, strength and joy in this passage of play from last Saturday’s Spurs-Eagles clash at the Merv Hughes Oval in beautiful parkland on the banks of the Maribyrnong River:
A great chaos ball into the forward pocket from Parkside Spurs number 26 leads to winger no 4 leaving her Yarraville Seddon opponent flat footed to kick a goal.
Since I first started following Aussie Rules footy at the age of 9 in 1967, the qualities I have most loved seeing are courage at the contest and skill, speed and flair.
Outstanding players I have seen in this regard are Barry Price, Keith Greig, Robbie Flower, Wayne Schimmelbusch, Garry Ablett Senior, Eddie Betts, The Krakouer brothers and the current Number 5 of the North Melbourne Kangaroos AFLW team, Tess Craven.
As a human being Tess is modest, kind, friendly and helpful and always puts her team ahead of herself. The strength, skill and determination she shows above in tackling a Melbourne opponent about one and a half times her size are awe-inspiring.
Women are rising in western society in all spheres of life. In the picture above North Melbourne defender and co-vice captian Nicole “Flash” Bresnehan points her fellow players to move forward attacking the goal.
If the rise in women means a rise in misandry, then men should be very very concerned. But if it means better sharing and caring, we will all be better off.
And when it means that football is becoming more beautiful, more collaborative and more impassioned, then I love seeing the shared leadership of women like Flash.
It provides a better spectacle and healthier community than the men’s game.
Watch the strength, agility and quick thinking of number 22 from Aberfeldie as an example of how good the women’s game can be to watch:
With a fantastic tackle she dispossesses a powerfully built Hillside opponent of the football, and then gets to her feet and brilliantly anticipates the trajectory of a handpass from another Hillside player to knock the ball behind an opponent and run around that player to gain possession for her team and race off to send the ball goalwards before anyone could stop her.
What an incredible bit of multi-tasking in congested play.
Yesterday, I had the enormous privilege to witness the three quarter time huddle of the Hillside women’s senior football team in a match against Aberfeldie.
Hillside had gone into the match undefeated and Aberfeldie were second on the ladder with two losses. At halftime it was a point the difference but Aberfeldie completely outclassed Hillside in the third quarter to go five goals ahead.
The determination of Hillside to fight back reflected in the fierce raw of their voices in that huddle was the most passionate sound I have ever heard from a group of footballers.
Previously it has been my contention that women’s footy is not as ferocious as men’s footy.
I stand corrected Hillside.
You dominated the first half of the final quarter.
With raw passion you clawed back two goals of the deficit.
Then this incident might have taken the wind put of your sails:
Perhaps if female football had more field umpires (the state government has recently cut back funding to female football), such violence would not effect the result of a game as I believe might be the case here.
I may be wrong. Aberfeldie is a very good side. They played well.
Also, I am not a psychic. I do not know if the violence was intentional or accidental. But I was standing a few meters away and the distress of the Hillside woman, who collapsed crying to the fetal position was so severe that I consciously made the decision not to film it, feeling in my gut that filming it would have invaded the hurt player’s personal space. 30 years of being a Registered Midwife has taught me that sometimes, no matter how much you might want to help, you have to let the woman do what she needs to do on her own.
That type of passion, of agony (cf Jesus on the cross), is a result of being a ball winner and a ball carrier and liable to be hit in a robust contact sport.
Here are some more examples of wonderful passion for the contest from the Hillside senior women.
Up forward Patty (spelling?) can crash through the packs to mark the ball in ways that remind me of the power of Travis Cloke.
Hillside player number 21 gets around an Aberfeldie players attempt to tackle with strength and peace:
I am not sure if the above is “selling candy” (fooling a chasing player by pretending to move one way and than going the other way) or a “don’t argue” (fending off a tackling player with pure strength) or both or neither. But I think the beautiful poetry in motion of these woman is great to savor in stills.
True athleticism is always beautiful.
Hillside and Aberfeldie will meet again this year and in my eyes are favorites to play in the grand final for this year’s premiership. What a prospect.
The best thing about being in Melbourne, Australia, is watching the free flowing glories of Australian Rules football in the state where the game was born.
This clip is from an Australian Rules football game yesterday between Aberfeldie who wear dark shorts and have light blue on their jumpers. Their opponents Keilor wear bright blue shorts and have red and white bands on their bright blue jumpers.
A Keilor player won the hitout in the ruck contest, but an Aberfeldie player showed better anticipation and quicker reaction than her opponents to win the ball.
She very skillfully and accurately executes a kick called a drop punt to her teammate. A drop punt is a kick that spins end over end and therefore usually travels in a straight line when hitting the ground.
The ball’s next recipient made no mistakes in retaining possession for her team.
She promptly handpassed to a teammate in a much better position to kick it down field.
While on the run, the new ball carrier took her time to look for the best option downfield.
She made sure that the carefully considered kick cleared the hand of a Keilor player attempting to smother.
The kick arrives downfield in a really good position for an Aberfeldie player to pull off a clever one handed contested mark.
I love watching fast skillful free flowing football, especially the rapidly rising female Aussie Rules action.
I think that men and women should be treated as equal in everything except the three female spheres of activity of being pregnant, giving birth and breast feeding.
But I think that there are subtle differences in abilities and tendencies between men and women such as a slight tendency for women to be more empathetic than men.
Overall, empathy is also a very common quality in men, but, as a man who was a midwife for 30 years, my life experience has been to see a little more empathy in women than in men.
To me there is an emotional beauty in the way that the Fitzroy footballer pictured below celebrates a goal by a teammate in a grand final played last year that you wouldn’t see as often in a male player.
Women tend to be better at expressing this sort of joy than men are.
Our culture teaches men to hide emotions not to let them out.
Do women bring more joy to the game of football or is that joy gender neutral?
Is women’s football more fun?
I look forward to respectful and open discussion of my ideas with anyone anywhere who loves sport and the non-dogmatic pursuit of truth and fun.
The day I took this photo of Melbourne ruckwoman Georgia Campbell being tackled at training by key forward Tayla Harris, the configuration of elbows, heads and hands caught my eye as something special.
Together, the two players looked like a Lotus Flower – the Buddhist symbol of purity, spiritual enlightenment and rebirth.
I asked Tay if she’d like a song to be written about it and she said she’d prefer a rap. So I tried (without huge ability in the art form) to make one. (click here)
In Melbourne, Aussie Rules football is often called a religion.
FOOTY FOR FREEDOM 