Julia Crockett-Grills is living the dream — not only playing her favourite sport at an elite level, but now being paid accordingly after the 94 per cent pay increase achieved through the one-year collective bargaining agreement with AFLW players earlier this year.
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Off the field she is one of the few Geelong players who is also able to work in a full-time capacity, finding her dream job as a surveyor with a civil construction group a year and a half ago — working for a football mad boss who provides the flexibility necessary for her to enjoy the best of both worlds.
"My boss is awesome, he is a footy fanatic,” Crockett-Grills said.
“I’ve had the luxury of being able to learn on the job for the last year and a half. The job also allows me to train three nights a week”
The increase in AFLW player payments has been a significant relief for Crockett-Grills, who is now able to make plans for her future.
“I have just started looking for a house, which I wouldn’t have been able to do without the new CBA,” she said.
"I now have a luxury of putting some savings aside and a bit more freedom in life.
“Not too many girls work full-time. I’ve found myself in a lucky situation,” she said.
The minimum AFLW salary rose from $20,239 to $39,184, with players of Crockett-Grills’ stature commanding salaries in the $47,372 to $55,559 range.
“The one-year CBA deal ends this season. Toward the end of the season there will be a new one.
“Hopefully I have a few years left in me to reap those rewards,” she said.
Crockett-Grills’ father, Kyabram newsagent Steve Grills (and wife Claire), remember finding it difficult to identify their daughter during her all-too-brief junior football days with St Augustine’s.
“All the kids used to wear helmets, and when a pack formed, it was hard to make them out. Then a kid would emerge with the ball and it was Julia,” he said.
Crockett-Grills moved to Kyabram in 1999, as a three-year-old, and her three younger sisters have all grown up in the town.
The entire family is regularly in the stands for the Cats games, with younger sister Eliza playing football with Monash University after a netball career with Lancaster.
Another sister, Kate, was a gymnast, but is now concentrating on nursing studies at university, while the youngest of the four, Rose, is in Year 11 and prefers the performing arts as her extra curricular activity.
The former St Augustine’s College student, now Geelong AFLW star, has taken that same attitude into her 35-game five-season career and is considered one of the hardest tackling players in the competition.
In a single match, against Western Bulldogs last season, Crockett-Grills had a career high 10 tackles and averages more than four tackles a game across her career.
Success hasn’t come straight away for the Cats, which came into the competition as the ninth team in 2019.
They won three of seven in the first year and only two (of six games) under the conference system in 2020. Last year the Cats won just one of nine games.
Controversy surrounded the opening round win of 2022 when a dangerous tackle free kick was paid downfield and, incorrectly as it turns out, was awarded to George Prespakis.
She converted the goal, responsible for both Geelong goals, to give the Cats victory.
Crockett-Grills, who will turn 28 in late October, had 14 possessions and laid two tackles in a dour struggle with Richmond, only three goals were kicked as the Cats emerged four-point winners.
Against Fremantle in round two she laid five tackles and kicked a goal — the Dockers were held to the lowest score in AFLW history — one solitary point. Geelong won the game 3.9 (27) to 0.1 (1).
In the two games since, against competition power houses Collingwood and North Melbourne, the Cats have suffered successive defeats.
Against Collingwood they lost by just four points, while the Kangaroos game produced a two-goal loss.
Crockett-Grills has played 35 games with the Cats, debuting in 2019 after being recruited from Hawthorn’s VFLW team.
She was elevated to the leadership group last season and maintained that role into season seven of the 18-team AFLW competition.
She plays alongside Echuca’s Annabel Johnson, Benalla star Rebecca Webster (last year’s runner-up best-and-fairest) and last week’s first gamer Kalani Scoullar — who is from Barham.
The Cats sit in fifth position on the 18-team ladder (all 18 clubs are now represented in the AFLW), probably needing six wins from their 10 games to make the finals.
“It’s pretty exciting, we were a bit disappointed with the Collingwood loss.
“We kept them to the score we wanted, but didn’t score enough ourselves. We have continued on from last year when we were a very contested team.
“That formed the base of what is happening now,” she said.
Crockett-Grills has been among a core bunch of 10 players at the Cats who have played all five seasons.
And she is excited about the change of season, which (in 2023) will mean the women’s season runs during winter, instead of summer.
It will allow Crockett-Grills, who admits to not getting home much during pre-season and footy season, to be back in Kyabram for Christmas and New Year.
She will watching on keenly as close friend William Wild leads the Kyabram reserve grade team into the Goulburn Valley league grand final on September 25.
Wild is captain of the Bombers reserves and was playing in the junior competition at the same time as the AFLW star 16 years ago.
Geelong will play only two of the four new teams into the competition this season, Essendon and Sydney.
They don’t play Hawthorn or Port Adelaide.
"I think we can be really competitive this year. Everyone thinks that making the eight is very achievable,“ the former Essendon supporter explained.
Crockett-Grills has already secured tickets to the AFL grand final, where she and her teammates will be cheering on the club’s male team.
“Tom Stewart is my favourite. He is a great man and was really good as our defensive coach for two years.
Geelong’s AFLW team is coached by Dan Lowther, a former Cat who played 34 games for the club between 1997-2001.
Kyabram Free Press and Campaspe Valley News editor