Shes a jet. Loved her goal yesterday. Just cracks in hard!
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If you haven’t listened to the first EFC AFLW podcast episode with her as guest, do so.
You’ll find out things like how she became the All-Australian full-forward (spoiler: it involves a kangaroo intercepting her motorbike).
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“Scott’s original candies, purchased by Carlton players everywhere”
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Pick 8 for her. Absolute steal.
She’s going to make Maddy Prespakis second fiddle in this team, and probably as soon as next season. She’s an out and out jet.
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I’m happy for duelling banjos.
Took two weeks to be nominated for Goal of the Year.
Delist.
Voting at:
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Seven other clubs looking mighty silly already.
And by 7, you mean 1 (but twice).
Thanks, Dawks.
Not pick 8 then?
People can nominate a state in the AFLW draft and pretty sure Scott nominated Victoria.
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Captions could be improved…a lot. There’s a lot of “hold my beer”s.
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My first thought was… Red P Plates?? then I remembered how young she actually is.
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I’ve got a few photos from when she was a kid playing against the boys. A couple of videos too she was always a gun
Some actual “new” info in here: the origin of the “elbows up” tattoo, wears the same number as her great-grandfather whop played U19 at EFC, etc.
by Marnie Vinall
Paige Scott’s opponents should look out.
The young Essendon forward is a ferocious tackler, skilled at chasing down and bringing opposition players to ground. This, she says, has a lot to do with her upbringing on the family farm near Avoca, in Victoria’s central highlands, and particularly to the trade of shearing sheep.
“My tackling skills definitely come from the farm. I’ve had to chase little lambs and stuff like that and pick them up, so for small steps and footwork,” said Scott.
“Hydration as well like, some days you’re on a farm and it’s 40 degrees, obviously you’ve got to keep fluids up and you take that to a game and leading up to a game and just managing yourself.”
So, what’s harder to tackle, a sheep or an opposition player? “I don’t know, depends on the sheep, depends on the player,” Scott laughed. “Maddy Pres [Essendon teammate Maddy Prespakis] is pretty hard to tackle.”
As a developing forward known for her contested marks, the 19-year-old will be crashing packs when Essendon’s season starts against Hawthorn at Frankston’s Kinetic Oval on Saturday.
Scott turned to footy at age 12, playing in the under 14s boys, after finding she picked up too many red cards in soccer. And she soon found out, it was in her blood.
Scott’s great-grandfather Henry Equid played for Essendon in the 1940s and was an under 19s premiership player. Scott wears the same number as him, 32.
His name is recorded at Windy Hill and Scott said it would mean a lot when she took to the same field, as the spiritual home will be used as Essendon’s AFLW home ground this season.“It’s cool to be able to, you know, bring back the history into my family as well,” she said.
Scott burst on the AFLW scene, playing a key role in the Bombers’ first game with 16 disposals and goal earning her a rising star nomination. She finished ninth in the overall rising star voting.
It was her grandpa, Keith, though, who had the biggest impact on Scott’s life - both on and off the field. He taught her the way around the farm and nurtured her early days at the same club he used to play at, Natte Yallock, 200 kilometres north-west of Melbourne.
“He was a tough old bugger but he had a heart of gold,” she said, recalling him once picking up a highly venomous brown snake off the road with his bare hands to chuck in the grain shed to eat the mice.
“Probably taught me how to swear as well,” Scott says. “He was definitely one of my biggest influences. And he was a hard old bastard when it came to footy as well.
“People used to say, ‘God, you play like your grandfather’ and then I started getting called ‘Bulldozer Junior’… That was Pa’s nickname. I was like, ‘Why?’ ‘Because he never went for the ball. He went for the player.’ ”
Keith passed away the morning of Scott’s VFLW debut for Geelong in April last year, which still brings her to tears.
“He’s definitely proud up there,” she says. “Probably would have wanted me to play for St Kilda - but I’m glad I didn’t go down that path.”
“I’ve got a tattoo just above my elbow saying ‘elbows up, kiddo’. Because he always used to say you’ve got to keep the elbows up when you’re playing footy.”
The city lights may not have captured Scott’s heart - “just put me on a paddock and some sheep and a sunset and I’m one happy girl,” she admits. But Essendon has, despite it not being some of her Collingwood-supporting family’s first preference.
“That’s one thing I really like about Essendon. It’s like a home, if not my first, my second … I remember sitting there when I was five years of age saying that I wanted to play AFL because I thought I was better than all the boys and I remember getting laughed at and getting told to get back on the netball field.
“[But now] it just feels amazing when a little girl or boy says to you, ‘I want to be just like you when I grow up and I love the way you play.’ It definitely brings you back to why you’re playing and why you love the game so much.”
She admits being on the farm is her “true love” and staying in the city during the season isn’t her first choice.
“But I love footy and footy is what I want to do - and, you know, you just have to make some sacrifices.”
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Pretty poor research by the journo there. Harry Equid was a member of our 1946 premiership side and also our 1948 losing Grand Final replay team. An U19, or Thirds as it was known then, premiership underplays his ability and his contribution to the club.
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