Recently retired GIANTS AFL Women’s captain Amanda Farrugia will take on a new role in 2020 as the NAB AFLW Premiership Cup ambassador.
While speaking at the 2020 AFLW season launch in Melbourne on Tuesday, Farrugia said she feels privileged to have been given the honour.
Farrugia, who retired in November, was enjoying her retirement on a beach on the New South Wales South Coast when she found out.
“I got a call from Nic Livingstone (Head of Women’s Football) saying that I’d been nominated to be the premiership cup ambassador and I was quite shocked, and my initial reaction was that I didn’t deserve such an accolade,” she said.
“But then I thought that it was an important measure of the work we’ve done in New South Wales to grow the game and establish pathways for the younger girls.”
Farrugia is considered an icon of women’s football in New South Wales by some including her coach Alan McConnell.
The western Sydney product began playing at Macquarie University in 2011 and went on to win three Mostyn Medals as the best and fairest in the AFL Sydney Premier Division and two premierships.
After joining the GIANTS with pick 64 of the 2016 NAB AFLW Draft, Farrugia displayed her elite leadership qualities and was announced as the club’s inaugural AFLW captain in January 2017.
Lovingly known to teammates and fans by her nickname ‘Fridge’, Farrugia played all 21 of the GIANTS’ games across three seasons.
Reflecting on her football journey, Farrugia admitted her decision to take up the game has been life changing.
“It’s been an absolute whirlwind, I never expected that it would happen and above all it’s changed my life.
“I started playing football at 25 and I just wanted a change, I’d been playing touch footy and basketball and I thought ‘you know what, why don’t I try a game that none of my friends play’.
“Upon reflection it is a phenomenal thing that has happened to me and I’m eternally grateful for the GIANTS being established and giving me the opportunity to play at the highest level.”
Farrugia’s involvement in the 2020 AFLW season won’t stop there, with the 35-year-old to provide special comments during Fox Footy’s coverage of AFLW games this season, starting with the GIANTS’ round one clash with the Gold Coast Suns at Blacktown International Sportspark on Saturday.
