Team Hope

AFLW player Moana Hope’s nontraditional career choice, coupled with a personal life that plays out on social media, is making her into an unconventional — but very necessary — role model.

- Rachelle Unreich

A little more than a year ago, it was mainly diehard footy fans who knew of AFLW player Moana Hope. But alongside headlines about her kicking 100 goals in a single season, her personal story leaked out. The publication of her 2017 memoir, My Way, made it clear that she has not only thrived despite a challenging childhood, but also managed to stay uncompromisingly, unapologetically herself. This is something particularly apparent in the book’s opening story, about how dismayed she was when she learnt a newspaper wanted to photograph her on the condition that she cover up the heavy tattoos running down her arms. It sent her into a spiral because she was asked to be someone she’s not, so she refused.

In the past 12 months, it’s become clearer who Moana Hope is: a role model for women dealing with bullying, homophobia and all the other weapons that imperil the nonconformist. She’s as much a warrior woman off the field as on it.