Hawthorn AFLW - Veteran Tamara Luke

Seasons are made up of moments. Like the one thirty seconds before the first bounce of round two in the 2022 Australian Football Women’s League, when Tamara Luke is fit and firing, taking on the first ruck duties in Hawthorn’s inaugural season. Primed for a big season. She jumps at the contest and is pushed off by her St.Kilda opponent. Or another moment, thirty seconds later, when Luke is lying prone on the ground, knowing (or at least suspecting) her season is over, courtesy of a torn anterior cruciate ligament knee injury.?

Every moment in sport can make you or break you. As Tamara Luke hobbled off the Box Hill Oval with the assistance of two Hawks off-field staff she was already forming a response. The first season for the Hawks AFLW team has now concluded (three wins, seven losses) and Luke’s next season has already begun with a carefully formatted recovery program which began with surgery reconstructing the ligament and then gradually inducing some movement, and later strengthening exercises. It’s not uncommon in football to injure a knee so the recovery program is well known. It’s hard work, with the reward of playing football usually many months (up to 12) away. Luke is hoping she can cut her recovery program down to nine, and be ready for round one in the Hawks second (and AFW’s eighth) season.?

Injury is part of every sport and 34 year-old Luke has had her share, including a torn Achilles tendon which sidelined her for nine months. At this stage of her career, with AFLW players on one or two-year contracts, the implications loom large. But Luke says she is not “overthinking it”. Delisting is always a possibility (it happened in her stint at St.Kilda) but she is focussed on enjoying the ride. She started her football career relatively late after playing netball for 18 years. All her brothers had played football and she regularly watched games on TV. As the women’s game expanded in both depth and spread she says, “I thought I’d have a go.” In 2017 she finished her final netball season and a month or so later she started preparing with the Box Hill Hawks, who were beginning a women’s program. At that time Box Hill was instigating a local program coached by Patrick Hill (at the time of writing he had moved to St.Kilda). She secured a spot on the St.Kilda list for its initial AFLW season in 2019/2020, but was later delisted, then was picked up by the new Hawthorn team, under premiership-winning coach Bec Goddard. Luke says the program at Hawthorn has focussed more on strength and conditioning work, and Bec Goddard has a different style to her original Saints coach Peta Searle.?

The Hawthorn inaugural list had a lot of young players, and Luke has been one of the older and more experienced players to join. She was relatively unfazed by her delisting and moving clubs. “Expansion sides mean more player movement,” she says. “It will stabilize now every club is in the competition. It’s part of how it happens. I’m grateful to have had another go.”

With the rearrangement of the seventh AFLW season so that it started much earlier (in late August, when the previous season just ended earlier in the same year), Luke played a large part of the Victorian Football League Women’s season with the Box Hill Hawks, before withdrawing late to prepare for the AFLW season.

“I felt like I was ready for a good season,” she says, “I had a pretty good game in round one.”

That first-round match was against Hawthorn’s traditional rival in the men’s competition, Essendon. Interest was so strong as the opening round approached that the game was moved from the suburban home ground of Port Melbourne to the AFL’s roofed Marvel Stadium. As a coach who is not averse to weaving a yarn around her pre-game build ups, coach Bec Goddard looked to wind up the challenge pre-game by getting a load of sand, spreading it across the player’s room entrance, and drawing a line through it. This recalled a famous game from years ago when Hawk great Dermot Brereton tried to fire up his struggling team by invoking a “line in the sand”. Much like that game from the archives the ploy ended up having a limited effect! The Hawks went down to Essendon, though they competed fiercely throughout.

Luke was looking forward to round two, having felt she had a “pretty good game” in the first contest. That enthusiasm evaporated very quickly after the first ruck contest when her opponent pushed off her and her knee gave way. “I felt it pop, and there was instant pain,” says Luke. “Then there was no pain.” All typical for an ACL injury. The surgeon performed a quad tendon transfer graft, and Luke is hopeful she’ll be back in nine months.

Without Luke (and a handful of other key players at different times) the season proceeded with ups and downs. The highlight was a stint in the middle of 10-game schedule when the Hawks won three games in a row, against Sydney, West Coast, and Port Adelaide. All were tight contests, but the Hawks showed plenty of grit to get over the line each time. There followed a very tight contest against Greater Western Sydney in Sydney, where the Hawks went down in the last minute of the game. Other than a performance where they were outclassed by the highly rated Brisbane team, the Hawks were competitive in all their matches.

At the time of writing the rehab for Luke had been smooth. Three times a week she was working with the club physio. Ultimately she will come back to running, but it’s a long path. Her aim is to be on the field for round one in the AFLW, but she says she may play some games in the VFLW.?

As an older player involved in a rapidly evolving and relatively new game, Luke is realistic about pay and conditions. “We’re not full-time players yet. I work as an exercise physiologist at Epworth Hospital two or three days a week. Only a couple of our players work near full time. The majority are studying full time or part time, but we all have to do some work.??We currently have 25 hours a week of contact with the club, but that may increase as we move forward. For us at the moment it is about participation. We see all the kids post game and a key part is promoting footy with girls. We want the kids to come and watch. At our games the majority of spectators are women and kids, but dads are coming too.”

She is confident standards are improving, and will continue to do so. “The skills will get better and better, much like the men’s competition, and the scoring will continue to improve too.” Despite a second significant injury, she has no regrets in joining the AFLW. She loves the physicality of the game, as well as acquiring the skills required. She loves the strategies and game plans. “And it’s on a big field, so from a fitness point of view it’s great as well.”

(At the Hawthorn Best and Fairest event on November 17 Tamara Luke won the Best Club Person award.)