Crows star midfielder Ebony Marinoff reveals the secrets from her past that have propelled her to 50 AFLW games
When she was younger, people would laugh off Ebony Marinoff’s footy career ambitions. Now, as she celebrates her milestone 50th game, the Crows star reveals never-before-told stories about her journey in women’s footy.
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When Ebony Marinoff was preparing to finish high school in 2015, she was asked to supply a sentence about her career aspirations that would be flashed up on a big screen at her graduation ceremony.
She supplied her teachers with 15 words:
“My professional goal for the future is to make the women’s AFLW League in 2017.”
No doubt there were some in the crowd that night who giggled or sniggered at such a career goal: after all, the AFLW was a mere pipe dream and the Crows were yet to even consider forming a team.
But if anyone laughed, Marinoff would have ignored them. She’d been ignoring the naysayers throughout her childhood.
Marinoff’s mum, Kathy, says even as an under-10s playing at Lockleys Football Club, Ebony was telling people she wanted to be a footballer.
“Growing up, people would ask her what she wanted to be and she would say: ‘I’m going to be an AFL footy player’,” Kathy says.
“People did laugh at her, but I’ve just always believed in letting your children do what they want to do.”
At 13, Marinoff was forced to give up the sport, but she didn’t feel sad, it was simply the reality of life back in the early 2010s and she threw herself into other sports including surf lifesaving.
However when she started high school at Henley Beach’s St Michael’s College, a whole new world opened up; the school supported girls football and played in an annual schools carnival.
But she had to join a club to be able to qualify to play, so she signed up at Morphettville Park Football Club in 2014, where she met talented, like-minded footballers (many of whom are lifelong friends including former Crows teammate Courtney Cramey and former coach Narelle Smith).
She flourished and in 2016 was selected to play in an exhibition game for Melbourne against the Western Bulldogs at Whitten Oval and the rest, in many ways, is history.
Later that year, Marinoff became the Crows first-ever AFLW draft pick as they assembled their inaugural team. Six seasons later she’s a two-time premiership winner, 2017’s Rising Star winner, three-time All-Australian, reigning club champion and the first woman to rack up 1000 touches in the AFLW.
When she runs out to play Collingwood at Norwood Oval on Sunday, she’ll tick another milestone, becoming the first Crow to play 50 AFLW games and in the first cohort of AFLW players to play 50 games, along with Brisbane’s Ally Anderson and Emily Bates.
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Marinoff says those six seasons have flown by.
“I’ve been blessed with a really good footy club, and a successful footy club, that just makes training and playing footy so easy,” she says.
“Obviously, I put a lot of work in over the years, continually trying to get better for myself as well as my teammates, because I just love winning.”
Remarkably Marnioff has not missed a match in her AFLW career.
So as she ticks over the 50-game milestone, so too, do the Crows; both older and wiser since Game One back on February 4, 2017.
She’s seen a lot in her 50 games: held aloft two premiership cups (2017, 2019), heartbreakingly lost one (2021); watched inaugural coach, Bec Goddard, depart; welcomed Matthew Clarke as he was appointed.
She’s knocked back lucrative offers to join other clubs.
She’s worked with much-loved assistant coaches – including two key mentors Narelle Smith and Andrew McLeod – and then waved them goodbye as they’ve left for other opportunities.
Teammates have come. Teammates have gone.
Games have been won. Games have been lost.
But one constant remains: Marinoff’s devotion to the game.
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That’s something her teammates talk about too, including star Erin Phillips, who loves Marinoff’s infectious passion.
“And her work ethic, too, she’s someone who makes sure she crosses her ‘t’s’ and dots all her ‘I’s’ and does everything right, which is absolutely outstanding,” Phillips says.
“She’s very diligent, but the girl can’t sit still … she’s always got to be doing something.”
Phillips recalls the early days of the AFLW competition and visiting Marinoff at a local West Lakes supermarket, where she sliced meat in the deli section as her part-time job (she now works in administration for the Crows).
“You knew she was always destined to play this game at the highest level,” Phillips says.
There’s another element that’s propelled Marinoff to the milestone: she’s avoided an injury serious enough to keep her out of a game. But she’s had her fair share of them.
In 2018, she split her tongue requiring six stitches and then six days later required five more stitches on a gashed cheek. That same year, she injured her back and spent the off-season diligently rehabbing it.
In 2019 she injured the AC joint in her shoulder and got through the season thanks to weekly injections.
In 2020 she rolled her ankle so badly it turned black; still she played on.
“My teammates, I think they definitely hate it, because I’m a maniac on the training track,” Marinoff says.
“The way I train is the way I play and that’s always been big for me in setting me in good stead each year, to get up for every game.”
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Marinoff was born in 1997, the year the Crows men’s side won their first AFL grand final. Back then, Adelaide’s No. 10 jumper was on the back of Matthew Robran, who’d inherited it from inaugural Crows captain Chris McDermott. In his career, Robran held two Cups aloft wearing the No. 10. It would have been impossible in the late 1990s to imagine that before her 23rd birthday, Marinoff, too, would have held aloft two premiership cups wearing the No. 10.
Kathy remembers how opposition parents often targeted the young Marinoff who had a penetrating left-kick from an early age.
“I’d say to Ebony, ‘You can be anything’ … but in some of the boys’ games it became quite volatile, some of the parents would yell out: ‘Hit her! Hit her like a boy!,” Kathy recalls.
“It was under-10s and it was just horrific, but she stood up despite it being daunting sometimes.”
Kathy says the extended family – including Marinoff’s beloved “Papa Jim” who was famous for picking his granddaughter up from school in his taxi – have loved watching Marinoff grow from a raw tackle-loving ball carrier in 2017, to a successful midfielder now elevated to the club’s leadership group.
“You didn’t really have to encourage Ebony at all,” Kathy says.
“She used to play early morning games, seven o’clock sometimes, and she would be up and ready to go before everyone else was even out of bed.”
Marinoff says football has been a saviour.
“I didn’t love school, like at all,” she says.
“I loved my friends, but learning English and all that, I can’t write to save my life … it just wasn’t me.
“If it wasn’t for football, I would have done something hands-on.
“I love cooking and I’d love to own my own cafe one day. But one thing that I’ve been big on since day one in the AFLW, is that I know this isn’t forever, so I want to make sure that I do it well so that I don’t have any regrets when I when I retire.”
Marinoff hopes women footballers can turn professional in the next couple of years and she’s looking forward to the league expansion that will see Port Adelaide join the league next season.
She’s also looking forward to the fact that the next cohort of women joining the AFLW will not have to wait six seasons to make their 50-game milestone as number of games played increases.
But for now, she’s happy to soak in the memories of the friendships she’s forged in the game she loves, and look ahead … she hopes to another premiership cup.
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