Tara Murray
The Suns’ Akima Manoah and Werribee Centrals’ Jessica Spall have had different football journeys but they were bought together on Thursday night as they shared the Western Football League women’s best and fairest.
The pair polled 18 votes each in the count to finish two votes clear of former winner, Caroline Springs’ Dijana Vasilevska.
For Manoah, it was her first season in the Western competition.
“It’s really exciting,” she said. “I hadn’t thought about it at the time as I was more worried about the VFLW [Victorian Football League].
“I didn’t think I would be up there, it was a good surprise. I was really nervous during the vote, trying to calculate it, but I struggled to keep up.”
Manoah said she loved playing with the Suns as it took the pressure off as she was also part of the VFLW environment with Williamstown.
She said the Suns were like home from the minute she joined the club.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” she said. “It was a really good experience. I felt like I had got everything out of the EDFL [Essendon District Football League].
“The Suns were convenient for my next move. I met the coach and captain, Leanne [Meyers] and Mary [Daw] and I wanted to go there.”
Manoah played two VFLW games this season including with the Seagulls preliminary final loss. She said she felt equipped for the final.
Manoah is planning to continue playing VFLW next season and dreams of playing in the AFLW.
“I’ll have a different mindset in 2025 after winning this bet and fairest.”
For Spall, she didn’t know if she would ever get back to playing football after a number of concussions.
She rejoined the Centurions last year and finished second in the league best and fairest before going one better this year.
Spall said last year was a shock and that winning it this year was incredible.
“I wasn’t expecting it at all,” she said. “I missed a few games, it was really shocking for me.
“No one had told me anything, but I thought I may have been fifth or something, didn’t think I would win at all.
“It was a complete shock and amazing feeling, it’s such a great honour. Our whole table went nuts, it was really cool.”
Spall said she’s been so lucky to play with such an amazing team the past couple of years and that it had been a couple of good years.
She admits that she lost interest in football for a while after not playing for so long.
“This is only my second year of senior football, I did play juniors before taking a really long break,” she said. “I had a few concussions and my parents were a bit cautious and they didn’t really want me to play.
“People convinced me to come down to the club again.
“I started back up last year and I’ve been loving playing over the past couple of years and I made so many friends.
“We’ve done some great things as a team which is amazing.”
Spall was part of the Centurions premiership side which she said was her greatest achievement that she’d been a part of.
She said she wouldn’t miss out on trying to go back-to-back.
