Erin Hoare opens up on returning to AFLW after studying abroad and welcoming two children

Cat Erin Hoare retired in 2019 to study at Cambridge University. Now as she’s returned to the AFLW this season, the now mum of two opens up on how she’s making it work.

GEELONG, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 05: Erin Hoare of Geelong poses for a portrait during a Geelong AFLW Draft Media Opportunity at GMHBA Stadium on April 05, 2023 in Geelong, Australia. (Photo by Kelly Defina/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)

There’s more than a few knowing looks that pass across the Geelong AFL Women’s changerooms these days.

In the last season that Erin Hoare played at Geelong, in 2019, she had announced her retirement and was off to Cambridge University to complete her post-doctorate fellowship.

These days, it’s a bit more of a delicate logistic balance.

There’s Edith, 3, and Conor, 10 months, now, too, with Hoare having returned to the club she loves as the top pick at this year’s supplementary draft – now as the mental health and wellbeing research lead at the AFL and as a mum of two.

Hoare, now 34, is one of four mums at the Cats, with the club a pillar for parents in the village required to raise a child.

Hoare with husband Chris and children Edith and Conor after she was taken at pick one in the AFLW supplementary draft in April. Picture: Mike Dugdale

But with her work, her study – having completed work to be a psychologist in recent years – and now the kids in tow, the question is a simple one.

Why come back to the game at all?

“Why I’m doing it is because I love footy, and I love the club,” Hoare said.

“And I’m from Geelong, so I love being here and being able to represent our region.

“Absolutely hand on heart, in the first couple of years of being a parent I couldn’t possibly have considered committing to AFLW.

“All the challenges involved in becoming a parent, adjusting to that new lifestyle … it’s obviously being a real privilege being a parent, but I really did find that challenging. Progressing from that and figuring things out a bit better has really allowed us as a family to allow me to commit to this.”

Since Hoare’s first jaunt at AFLW, which saw her play as one of the Cats’ foundation players, the “maturity of the competition” has evolved alongside support for parents.

Hoare makes the point several times that she and husband Chris are “fully aware of the privilege of even having children”.

The ruck and teammates Renee Garing, Kate Darby and Samantha Gooden are all mothers and Hore said that like most things in footy – it’s about the one-percenters.

“How parents are supported to play in so many different ways – systemic ways, I guess, from policies that allow partners to travel, right through to no repercussions for say if you’ve got sick little ones and not being at training,” she said.

“Things like that – just the kind of little stuff as I’m saying it but collectively it’s just huge to allow you to commit to the program but also feel really good about what you’re doing.

“It’s real camaraderie, I suppose. Obviously you get the challenges of being a parent but also the realities of what the day sort of looks like.

“And the club are obviously fantastic in allowing us to be parents and to combine that with being athletes. They’re really open to learning, as well, so every time there’s an accommodation made for us, there’s real curiosity on ‘how did that work, can we do it any better?’.

“That’s coming from (CEO Steve Hocking) at the very top, all the way through the club. That level of support is just amazing. The openness to learning how to do it better.”

Hoare just loves being a Cat. Picture: Getty Images

While study has taken Hoare, also a former Melbourne Vixens netballer, around the world – from time as a Fulbright Scholar in Boston, to the University of Cambridge and senior research fellow at Deakin University – footy followed, too.

“Covid hit not even 10 months into that stay (at Cambridge), so that changed a whole heap of things, and globally, obviously,” she said.

“But we had plans to be in Cambridge and Edith was born in Cambridge and it was planned to go on to the US to do another stint there, which sadly couldn’t occur. But in the context of Covid, that was just a minor thing.

“We had still been involved in footy in Cambridge – we were really closely linked in to the Cambridge Uni Aussie rules football club, which was great. They had their 100th year match, which my husband Chris played in against Oxford. So that was really cool – you can just imagine the long history in the club.

“We were very much involved in footy still in England.”

Returning to the game as a competitor was a different beast this time around, having battled significant hip issues during her pregnancy that made it difficult to even walk.

Replicating the hits of a match is “near impossible”, meaning the last few weeks have been a flashback to what footy really brings.

What it has allowed Hoare is a “laser focus on what’s essential and what’s not”.

“Contemplating about training misses or game stuff-ups for hours on end is just not possible in the context of what day to day life is like as a parent,” she said.

There’s nothing like the hits in footy, Hoare says. Picture: Getty Images

“That’s a real benefit … my reality of the first couple of years of becoming a parent and Covid and everything as well, those challenges were significant. And it was not at all within the possibilities for me of doing football.

“I probably did look a little bit to the other couple of mums in the team who I played with … and you do wonder, how are they making that work, while you’re navigating sleeping and the like. But things change and you learn new skills and new environments and that led me to be able to do this alongside the club just being so supportive, and I work for the AFL who are a huge support as well to allow me to do this.

“While we’ve got a few mums, there’s probably athletes coming through the competition who might want to become mums in their athlete journey and just for them to see how it works and that it is working and that it is growing in terms of being more normalised, that that’s an opportunity for them too, in the future.

“Obviously your career’s not over if you choose to become a parent. It’s a real club and competition-wide learning.”