{"id":176876,"date":"2024-11-26T12:03:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T02:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/?p=176876"},"modified":"2024-11-26T12:08:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T02:08:20","slug":"roberts-rises-to-queen-of-the-eagles-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2024\/11\/26\/roberts-rises-to-queen-of-the-eagles-nest\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberts rises to Queen of the Eagles nest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>AS the AFL Women\u2019s season starts to wind down, clubs are starting to award their club best and fairest awards, recognising the stars of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this new series from&nbsp;<em>Rookie Me Central<\/em>, we take a look at the seasons of these club champions and what led them to have such stellar seasons. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next up in this series, we take a look at the season of West Coast young gun <a href=\"\/afl\/player\/ella-roberts\/\" data-type=\"player\" data-id=\"81924\" class=\"_dc_spo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ella Roberts<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roberts has come away from a stellar 2024 campaign with a first Club Champion award. She finished the count on 115 votes, finishing a mere vote ahead of second placed <strong>Charlotte Thomas<\/strong>, with <strong>Bella Lewis<\/strong>,<strong> Beth Schilling <\/strong>and <strong>Ali Drennan<\/strong> rounding out the top five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It has been quite the year for Roberts, with a maiden All Australian blazer and an equal ninth finish in the W Award to go with her maiden Club Champion award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite only being three years into her AFL Women\u2019s career, Roberts plays with the prowess and confidence of someone who has been in the league much longer than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2024, Roberts averaged career best levels for disposals (21.4 per game), contested possessions (12.2 per game) and clearances (3.5 per game), while also kicking a career high six goals for the season. She also finished fourth in the entire league for contested marks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a side with legends of the women\u2019s game in the likes of <strong>Emma Swanson<\/strong> and <strong>Kellie Gibson<\/strong>, Roberts is the face of a new direction for the Eagles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a side that has continuously struggled ever since coming into the competition five seasons ago, Roberts is at the core of a young group of talented stars going places under new coach <strong><em>Daisy Pearce<\/em><\/strong>, alongside the likes of Lewis and <strong>Charlie Thomas<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roberts is now West Coast\u2019s number one mid, who either playing on the inside or off half back can creative a lot of run and drive into attack for her side, and is now someone that opposition genuinely need to have a conversation about tagging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the Eagles only picked up four wins this year, there is now genuine hope and belief that things are going somewhere positively, and Roberts is going to keep playing a big part in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-dc-block-dc-mention _dc_mention\"><div class=\"section-heading_wrap\"><span class=\"section-heading is-small\">Mentions<\/span><span class=\"hor-border\"><\/span><\/div><ul class=\"js-overflow-list overflow-list\"><li class=\"object-mention_single\"><div class=\"tag tag--is-clickable\"><a class=\"tag-text _dc_mention_p\" href=\"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/player\/ella-roberts\/\">Ella Roberts<\/a><\/div><\/li><li class=\"js-dropdown dropdown overflowed\"><button class=\"btn btn-icon-only\"><span class=\"icon btn-icon\">\n                    <!-- icon - plus circle - 20px-->\n                    <svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 20 20\">\n                        <path d=\"M15,9.28h-4.3V5h0A.72.72,0,1,0,9.28,5h0V9.28H5a.72.72,0,0,0,0,1.43H9.28V15a.72.72,0,0,0,1.43,0h0V10.71H15a.72.72,0,0,0,0-1.43Z\"\/>\n                        <path d=\"M10,0A10,10,0,1,0,20,10,10,10,0,0,0,10,0Zm0,18.57A8.57,8.57,0,0,1,10,1.43h0a8.57,8.57,0,0,1,0,17.14Z\"\/>\n                    <\/svg>\n                <\/span><\/button><div class=\"popover\"><div class=\"popover-content\"><ul class=\"popover-menu\"><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AS the AFL Women\u2019s season starts to wind down, clubs are starting to award their club best and fairest awards, recognising the stars of the season. In this new series from&nbsp;Rookie Me Central, we take a look at the seasons of these club champions and what led them to have such stellar seasons. &nbsp; Next [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10000,"featured_media":176880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3115,18807,8,19769],"tags":[14252],"class_list":["post-176876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aflw","category-analysis","category-news","category-west-coast","tag-ella-roberts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10000"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176876"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176892,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176876\/revisions\/176892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}