Midfielder Renee Forth has lived the rollercoaster that is elite-level women’s football. But the journey might finally be making sense
Midfielder Renee Forth arrived for the 2019 season at the Crows en route from Western Australia via Sydney. And finally, she might just be in the right place at the right time.
AFLW
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFLW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- SA’s 25 most influential women in sport
- Courtney Cramey and Chelsea Randall reminisce about football
- Anne Hatchard is transformed and renewed
Playing football at the elite level is a funny old game. A game of dealing with injuries, and doubt. Of victories and lucky breaks. Ultimately, it’s a game that can come down to being in the right place at the right time.
That’s certainly the case for Renee Forth, who at the end of last season as a midfielder for Greater Western Sydney, had lost confidence in her game.
She’d arrived at the Giants in 2016 from Western Australia, as a marquee signing for the AFLW’s inaugural season, making the decision to leave behind her home state with partner Emma Swanson — also a GWS marquee singing — because of the desire to help the development of the women’s game across the country.
But she also brought to GWS a recently reconstructed knee that still required a year of rehabing and the club gave her a development coaching role in the interim.
“That in itself was a big challenge because in one way, the coaches treated me as a coach and the players treated me as a player, but I wanted to be a player,” she says. “It was a rollercoaster.”
That rollercoaster only got more hairy come AFLW season two: her knee was more than ready. But her on-field confidence wasn’t.
“A lot of people who haven’t been through (an ACL) might think the rehab is the hardest part, and I thought it was, until I tried to play good footy again, but I couldn’t,” she says.
“I was never worried about my knee … it was that I was holding myself back. I would doubt myself for one second and at that level you don’t have time for doubt.”
Meetings with head coach Alan McConnell ensued. Questions where raised. Strategies were devised. But nothing worked.
“After every game, he was like: ‘What’s wrong?’. And I’m like: ‘I don’t know’,” the 32-year-old electrician says. “I really couldn’t figure it out.”
Then came the self-doubt. The frustration. The worry. And finally, after having played just three games of AFLW, the marquee was dropped as GWS prepared to play Fremantle game back home in WA. It was the homecoming that was never to be.
“Al wanted me to go, but I said no. I said: ‘I’m not rubbing that in my face, it’s hard enough being told that I’m not good enough’.”
Forth, known as “Sparky” because of her career as an electrician, ended up playing the final two games of that season, but only because of injuries to others and then a brutal end-of-season review awaited.
She was frankly told that she did not fit inside the Giants top 24 players.
“I had another conversation with (McConnell) and I said: ‘Do you doubt me as a player?’ and he said: ‘Yeah. I do’.”
The 2019 AFLW Prospectus — compiled by the AFL’s official statisticians, Champion Data — backs up that analysis.
“Forth recorded the fewest Champion Data ranking points of any Giants midfielder last season and rated below average or poor in all key midfield categories,” the prospectus says of her 2017 season. And suddenly, the once-exalted player needed to find a new club.
“(McConnell) said to me: ‘I can’t preach care at the club and not tell you to keep your options open’ … and I appreciate his honesty to me and I’m sure he appreciates my honesty back as well.
“It’s footy — and if I’m not playing good footy, I’m not owed another opportunity.”
Enter Crows co-captain Erin Phillips, whom Forth met at an AFL Academy Coaching clinic.
“We formed a good bond. Then when I was at the crossroads she said: ‘Come to the Crows and I’ll help you play some good footy’.
“So that’s why both the Crows and I were ready to talk … the ground work had been made and she put in a few good words for me.”
This season, Forth has played every game and has impressed the coaches both on and off the field. It’s as if she’s finally found the right place at the right time. And looking back at the harsh dose of reality handed to her last year by her former coach, it was just what she needed.
“I appreciate what (McConnell) said, because at the end of the day, Adelaide is the place for me. I fit in this team, whereas there I didn’t.
“The girls are great and everyone gets along really well, it’s not cliquey. The girls all hang out … there are always things to do with the girls to catch up.”
However Forth’s seven-year-old English staffy rescue dog — Rocky, whom she’s had for six years — is the determining factor as to whether she attends those catch-ups with her teammates.
“A lot of the time if I can’t take my dog, then I don’t really go,” she says.
“I spend most of my time outside of work (at an electrical wholesaler) and outside of footy, with Rocky.
“(But) it doesn’t mean that because I don’t hang out with the girls a lot that I don’t feel connected to the team.
“I feel just as connected as the person who hangs out with the girls all the time.”
The move to SA might have been made with Rocky by her side, but it’s without her partner, Swanson.
“We’ve got to choose what’s right for us as footy players, and for Emma, that’s staying at the Giants,” Forth explains. “It’s a great club and she had a decent review. So we had to choose what’s right and then support each other.”
For the first time, Forth will line up against her former club when Adelaide plays GWS today at Unley Oval.
But the game won’t pit the partners against each other: Swanson had season-ending shoulder surgery in February, after she accidentally slid into a goalpost during GWS’s second round loss to North Melbourne.
“I think that might make it a little bit easier,” Forth muses. “Easier, but you don’t ever wish that a team is missing their best players, because you want to play whatever their best is.”
Crows head coach Matthew Clarke praises his experienced midfielder as being a great addition to his premiership-favourite group.
“She’s just been a great influence on our younger players in particular,” he says.
“A really calming influence, with great composure when she has the ball and her versatility, she’s played forward and mid for us.
“She’s been a real asset.”
And that’s just the thing about being in the right place at the right time: finding the joy and fun in elite level football again.
Originally published as Midfielder Renee Forth has lived the rollercoaster that is elite-level women’s football. But the journey might finally be making sense
The important message, Selwood connection driving Cat forward
Mikayla Bowen knows the impact Adam Selwood had on kick-starting her own AFLW career. On the eve of a seventh season, the Cats forward opens up on her mission to speak up on mental health.
Nine years, seven Grand Finals: The rivalry where AFLW was born
Before AFLW, there was Darebin vs Diamond Creek. It was the bitter rivalry fought in Melbourne’s northern suburbs which culminated in seven Grand Final battles across nine years.