Carlton footy twins Sarah and Jess Hoskings refute Billy Brownless’ AFLW claims
Billy Brownless sparked controversy last week when he said women weren’t “built to play footy”. But AFLW twins Sarah and Jess Hosking say his words couldn’t be further from the truth.
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Geelong great Billy Brownless sparked controversy last month declaring he was “not sure” about women playing Australian rules football.
“I don’t know if they’re built to play footy,” he said from the I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! TV jungle.
“It’s not being sexist or anything. The other thing with girls is, they get hurt … they haven’t been taught how to protect themselves properly.”
Carlton AFLW player Jess Hosking refuses to be deterred by what could happen.
“I hate living life thinking about the ‘what if?’,” she says. “‘What if I get hurt? What if I don’t do something?’, and I think the same applies for football.
“Women are getting the same injuries in other sports. (Footy is) something we enjoy doing and know the risks of playing. However, it’s not going to stop how hard we go in at a contest.”
That same determination was on show in November at the New York City Marathon when Jess and her twin Sarah waited in freezing conditions on a packed Staten Island as wave after wave of competitors were called to the start line.
“We’d been warned by quite a few people of what happens there before the run and how cold it can get,” Jess recalls.
“And don’t use the portaloos, because some people catch things when they’re running and then it, well, hits them during the race.
“We had clothes on, long-sleeved tops and pants on, but it wasn’t enough. We were shivering and realised that we had three hours to kill sitting in the same spot.
“We were the fifth wave of people, so the last wave that went through. As soon as the first wave went off, we took all their clothes from the donation bins and put them on.”
And so, wrapped in the clothing of strangers, the sporty Melbourne twins marked the latest chapter in their journey, spurred on by strangers in the crowd to be among the event’s record 53,627 finishers.
“It got to our turn and the amount of people that were there, it was just insane,” Sarah says.
“We saw how many were around us, but you didn’t fathom it until we were actually at the start line. People would just shout out to us and say ‘Oh dayummmm, I see you twins! I see you!’ They’d shout out ‘Sarah, Jess’ and little kids were out there with power-up signs with Yoshi and you’d tap them along. That’s what made me run faster and get through it all.”
The run was Jess’s idea in support of Interplast, a not-for-profit organisation — of which she’s an ambassador — that provides plastic and reconstructive surgery to the underprivileged across the Asia Pacific.
They weren’t “proper” runners by any stretch, Sarah says, and the juggle of returning to an AFLW pre-season off the back of the marathon meant they had to be careful.
They might share so much, but training for the 42.1km run together? Not on your life.
“I hate running with Jess,” Sarah grins. “I just don’t like running with people, especially long distances.”
Jess managed to clock up her kilometres in true frenetic style.
“Leading into it, I signed up to a half-marathon and the day before I played footy in the morning, netball in the afternoon, and then the half-marathon,” she says.
“I clocked up the 40-something kilometres across the two days, and I was fine. I got a lot of blisters from the half, and I was a little bit nervous.”
But on the day, they were buoyed by an unexpected sighting.
“Our parents were travelling in the Greek islands. They decided to change a flight on the way home, so stopped in New York to meet us,” Jess explains.
“By total chance, I think we’d hit the 27km mark and we’d been on the right side the whole time, and Sar was high-fiving everyone — again, it’s just about all she did the whole time — and we just randomly decided to switch to the left side.
“And within 300m, we see mum and dad, five people back jumping up and down and waving. So I’ve got a selfie with mum and dad. And then kept running.”
Just keep running. It’s pretty much the mantra for the 24-year-olds who “didn’t realise” they had booked tickets to the basketball that night. No bath in Epsom salts, recovery was instead at Madison Square Garden an hour after they finished the run.
Such is the “crazy” life of the pair — both Carlton footballers and Country Racing Victoria ambassadors. Sarah also works at the Blues full-time as course co-ordinator at the Carlton College of Sport, which provides students a pathway to study and work in the sports industry, while Jess is about to start a contract role as the executive officer of SIS (Southern Independent Schools).
The AFLW competition saw a landmark collective bargaining agreement reached — eventually.
A group of players, including the twins’ teammate Darcy Vescio, led the charge for better conditions and more communication.
Jess says playing footy full time is the goal, but she’s willing to wait.
“In an ideal season for us, I’d love to be playing and training full time so that I can invest more into the program and get my body and skills to a higher standard,” she says.
“I also understand that’s going to take time and the AFLPA are representing us the best they can, and within time want the same outcome.”
Jess also supports the charity CleftPALS after undergoing 18 surgeries as a child after she was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. It made running for Interplast all that more personal.
“I went with them to Samoa … since going on that trip and seeing what they do first-hand, that’s been a driving factor for me to then come back and do more fundraising,” Jess says.
“The marathon itself was always on a bucket list for us, but to do it for a cause was even better.
“It wasn’t until I shared my story that I realised the impact and sharing what I’ve gone through can actually have on other people.”
Sarah felt the bullying her twin suffered as kids growing up on the Mornington Peninsula, and feels now for the current generation who might feel like they have no escape.
“We were the generation that just started to get social media,” she says.
“Now kids that may be bullied during the day, go home and can be bullied until they go to bed, when it used to be you’d go home and switch off and be with your family and that was your safe place.
“But now it’s almost in reverse; that it gets worse when you get home. Jess is spot on — the more we can talk about it and raise the awareness, the more we’ll do about it.”
The pair will kick off their fourth AFLW season this week with extra motivation after falling short in last year’s Grand Final against Adelaide.
Sarah is again a member of the Blues’ leadership group, which Jess says suits her to a tee, with the memory of March’s 45-point defeat at Adelaide Oval still fresh in their minds.
“We went in very confident because we thought we’d put in the work that needed to be done,” Jess says.
“And coming off the back of playing against Freo (in the preliminary final) and how we played against Adelaide during the rounds, we thought we were up for a good shot.
“We now know that that’s the benchmark that we have to beat, and we’re doing the work that hopefully will get us across.”
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The opportunity to share it all — including plenty of “food adventures” as Instagram’s “Hungry Hoskos” — with their “womb mate”, as they dub themselves, isn’t lost on Sarah, who says they “don’t take it for granted”.
They live together in Armadale and neither currently has a partner, though any prospective love interests are on notice.
“If there’s anyone that comes into our lives, as long as they get along with (the other twin) then we’re happy and it ticks that box,” Sarah says.
“It’s definitely a package deal.”
THE 2020 AFLW SEASON STARTS ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7. WOMENS.AFL