FROM a player who only started taking footy seriously over the last couple of seasons, Grace Hodder‘s meteoric rise from fringe VFLW player to star Sandringham Zebras midfielder has been one of the ages. By her own admission, she never a natural runner, but when she set her sights on getting as far as she could in the sport she was “all-in”.

“I’m the kind of person that I don’t do things in halves, ever,” Hodder told Rookie Me Central while up in Darwin playing in the NTFL Women’s Premier Division. “I’ve got an inability to do it, which is like a blessing and a curse, I guess. “But when I decided that, ‘no, I’m gonna take footy seriously’, it was obviously like I’m going all in.”

It is not like Hodder has come from complete obscurity. In fact, the now 24-year-old came through the Dandenong Stingrays program as a teenager, playing eight games in her top-age season, as well as making her VFLW debut with the then Southern Saints.

But, despite what we know of the 2025 version of Hodder, it was not just a natural rise to get to where she is today. In fact, it was more of a grind as the talented sportsperson was more focused on cheerleading at the time which was her priority.

“If I had a cheerleading comp, I wouldn’t play footy,” Hodder said. “Or if I had an extra cheerleading practice, I wouldn’t be able to go to footy practice, things like that. “Then I finally quit three years ago now and said ‘I’m going to give the footy thing a real crack’.”

Everyone has a footy origin story, and while that moment was a turning point for Hodder, it was not how she initially got into the sport.

“It’s actually kind of a funny story,” Hodder said reminiscing of how she first took the field. “We have this awesome group of family friends back home. “One of them was the local girls footy coach and they were getting a team off the ground and one day he called my mum and he was like, ‘hey, can Grace just come and literally stand there? We just need an extra number so that we don’t have to forfeit’.

“Mum was like ‘do you want to do it? and I was like “okay, sure, but I can’t just stand there, it’s not the way my brain works.”

The coach plonked Hodder in the forward pocket so she did not have do too much in a sport that was foreign to her. Little did anyone know, it was the start of something special. She loved her first game, and by her third she had already outgrown the team and was scouted by the Stingrays.

From there, Hodder’s journey in football grew, and while by her own admission she had not taken it seriously until a couple of years back, she is well and truly engrained in the culture now. The lockdown years resulted in her endurance base growing, taking daily runs with her father, and from there, she worked closely with her club’s strength and conditioning coach Emile Tait.

Over the last two years, Hodder significantly improved her running capacity and while last season she was still developing her game, was looking like she belonged with a personal-best 11 games in the 2024 season. But what came over the next 12 months was something not even Hodder could have envisaged.

She was named captain of the Sandringham Zebras heading into the 2025 VFLW season, stepped up to play a key role around the ball and won the club’s best and fairest. Her form through the state league season earned her a train-on spot with St Kilda, which only further strengthened both her love for the game, and her hunger to reach that next level.

“If you’d have told me at the end of last year when I was in and out as an emergency and not really making many strides… if you’d have told me, ‘okay, well, next year you’re going to be captain, be a train-on and win the BnF’, I would have told you you were absolutely crazy,” Hodder said.

“All those things just add confidence and they’re extra strings to your bow, but being around the highest level and training with them and seeing how hard they were has just lit a little bit of a fire in me where I’m like, ‘I want to be there more than ever now’, not ‘I just want that opportunity’.

“I’ll work as hard as I can to get there, but then in the mean time as well, seeing the standards that they drive and how much they will keep each other accountable and work towards the same goal has given me a few things that I really want to take back to Sandy and get the girls around and get everyone involved in. “Just because that’s the environment that they’re in, doesn’t mean that we can’t replicate it with what we have.”

Over the off-season Hodder has been playing up in Darwin where on the referral of her friend and teammate Isobel Hartog, has linked up to play for Waratah in the NTFL Women’s Premier Division. With a flexible arrangement to live there pre-Christmas and the first week of January, Hodder will still fully focus on training with Sandringham, and flying up over the weekends if the ‘Tahs wanted her to play.

“Sandy preseason is my priority and they were completely on board with that,” Hodder said. “In terms of decision making, it was kind of a no-brainer because what an opportunity it is. “Number two, I want to get better at footy and I want to take every opportunity I can to try and get closer to playing at the highest level.

“If I can do that without it impacting my VFLW preseason, why would I not take that opportunity?”

Hodder describes the style of football as exposing more of players natural talents, with the flipside being a lack of structure compared to Victoria. However, she enjoys the different style and believes both competitions could improve from the other one’s strengths.

On her own game, Hodder describes her running and contested ball-winning ability amongst her biggest weapons, alongside her defensive pressure and leadership. She is currently working on being more efficient with her kicking and improving her decision making under pressure.

There have been no shortage of inspirations over the journey, with Hodder looking up to legend Erin Phillips, as well as current players Tyla Hanks and Kate Hore. She also raves about the work of St Kilda pair Tyanna Smith and Jaimee Lambert which she has seen first-hand at training.

“Choppy’s (Lambert) so smart and her body work around stoppage is crazy,” Hodder said. She’s a very, very intelligent player. “Then T (Smith) just has that explosiveness and her ball winning ability is crazy. “If I could have a combination of those two in a perfect world, put that on my Christmas list.”

A real footy fan at heart, Hodder often sits down and watches “nearly every game” each weekend for the AFLW, and while the Saints have her heart at the moment given her train-on spot, she said the “crux of it” was that she just loves watching good players, play footy.

If her football commitments were not hectic enough, Hodder balances four jobs, three younger brothers, a boyfriend, family, friends and a golden retriever, all of whom she makes room for amongst a busy schedule.

“I’ve got a lot of good people in my life who take up a lot of my time, but then also have so much fun,” she said. “I am the kind of person who does love to fill their time as, as bad of a habit as it is. “I find little moments in my day to chill out and take a moment.

“I always read a couple chapters of my book before bed, because that helps me to switch off no matter how crazy my day has been. “But I think I am the kind of person who my cup gets filled spending time with other people that I really like and who make me the best version of myself. “I don’t really have a whole lot of downtime, but I don’t really mind.”

Now 24 years of age, Hodder’s priorities have changed over the last half-decade, but she has clarity in what she wants, even if she knows she cannot control the outcome.

“I’ve been thinking a bit about this as we come to the end of the year and I think I was always a little bit afraid to admit it,” but I would love to get on the list,” she said. “In terms of the things that I can control, I’d love to continue to improve in my footy, maintain my fitness, improve my kicking and improve my disposal efficiency under pressure.

“I’m set to finish my Masters next year, so I think that’s a big last goal for me is to finally get out of uni. “Then also just the simple things like I just want to be happy and I want to continue spending time with the people that I love because when you get that balance right, that’s when I’m playing my best footy anyway.

“But the main thing would be to get on a list and to win a premiership at Sandy. “They’re two goals where you have to get the process right to get the outcome right. “So focus on the little things along the way.”

As for what it would mean to reach the AFL Women’s, Hodder said she would “obviously be elated” but it would mean far more to her than just the accomplishment itself.

“I don’t think you can put into words that feeling, but also my parents and all of the really good people I have in my life have put a lot of their own energy into helping me achieve my goals and my dreams,” she said.

“Especially my parents, they sacrifice a lot for me to be able to do the things I do and be the person I am. “In terms of what would it mean to me, I would be unbelievably excited and it would be reward for all the hard work, but making your parents and the people that you really care about proud, is such an unreal feeling. “I would love to make them proud.”