Shock code switch awaits snubbed Hockeyroo Rosie Malone after she was signed by the Gold Coast Knights
A shock code switch awaits snubbed Hockeyroo Rosie Malone. Discover which sport has snapped her up and where she has signed.
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Snubbed Hockeyroo Rosie Malone is set for a shock code switch after she was signed by a women’s football club on the Gold Coast.
The Gold Coast Knights announced that they had signed Coast local Malone.
“Gold Coast Knights FC are excited to announce the signing of Rosie Malone,” the club’s statement said.
“A great addition to our squad and no stranger to football, having represented Australia as a junior player.
“Welcome to the GC Knights family Rosie, we can’t wait to see what you do next.”
It paves the way for what would be a shock code switch for Malone given just over a month ago she was preparing to represent the Hockeyroos at her second Olympic Games.
She was instead sensationally left out of the Hockeyroos squad for the Paris Olympics, despite being named among just five finalists for the 2023 International Hockey Federation’s player of the year award months earlier. She was also Australia’s leading goalscorer in 2023.
She has a longstanding connection with Gold Coast Knights head of women’s football Gary French, dating back to when she was just 11 years of age.
She was playing football under French at Souths United in Brisbane before she gave the sport away after first being selected for the Hockeyroos in January of 2018.
In a Q&A with the Gold Coast Bulletin in 2019, Malone said she “definitely” thought about what might have happened if she picked football over hockey.
“Even now I watch the Matildas play and I know some of the girls in the team and grew up playing alongside them,” she said at the time.
“I follow all the girls on social media and still chat to some of them. I do sit there sometimes and think back to when I was 15 and the soccer people wanted me to commit to soccer.”
Malone boasts an impressive football resume and first represented Australia internationally in the sport in 2010, travelling to Vietnam with the under-13s for the AFC Festival of Football. As an under-14 in 2012, she earnt selection into Australia’s under-17 Junior World Cup Squad.
On Saturday evening, Malone posted a heartfelt message to her Instagram account as the Olympics got underway.
She didn’t announce her retirement from hockey, but said she was thinking of “those special people who have been there for us when we needed you most and who’ve held our hand as we navigated our toughest terrain”.
She signed off the post with: “The story isn’t over yet … there’s so much more to come … and we know you’re there with us for the ride.”
It remains unclear whether Malone will step away from hockey entirely.
Her signing comes amid a period of dominance for the Knights women’s outfit after they sealed their promotion to the top-tier NPL Queensland competition last weekend with 4-1 defeat of Robina City.
It caps off a rapid ascension given the club’s senior female program was only established in 2023.
The Knights started out in the FQPL3 competition, where they won all of their games to be promoted straight into the second-tier FQPL1.
On Saturday, the Knights also won the Kappa Pro Series after it downed Logan Lightning 2-0 at Goodwin Park.
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Originally published as Shock code switch awaits snubbed Hockeyroo Rosie Malone after she was signed by the Gold Coast Knights
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