From the moment Jas Fleming was drafted into the AFLW by Hawthorn with Pick 2 in 2022, everything started to blur.
“It just went so fast,” Fleming told Women’s Agenda recently. “Suddenly, I was lining up against some of the best midfielders in the country every single round, it did take a while to get used to it.”
“Honestly, I was a little bit star struck in the first two rounds and I needed to settle in.”
Now, in 2023, Fleming is in the midst of playing her second season of AFLW for Hawthorn (the club she grew up supporting), and already has a second ‘Rising Star’ nomination under her belt.
Fleming has sport in her blood. The 18-year-old is the daughter of Australian cricket legend and commentator Damien Fleming, and former elite netballer Wendy O’Donnell. With a family like that, Fleming says being an elite sportsperson was always on the horizon.
“My dad said it best before I got drafted – that I’ve kind of been preparing for elite sport since I was born,” Fleming says.
“I always knew as a kid I wanted to pursue sport – I was into basketball for a little bit, I tried out netball, footy, and then for a while, I thought I was going to try and pursue cricket.”
In fact, right up until about six months before the draft for the 2022 NAB AFLW season, Fleming was still set on cricket.
“But then the interest from the AFLW and where the league was at, it presented an opportunity that pushed me more into footy,” Fleming explains.
Fleming says it was always easy to see her future in sport, largely because growing up, she knew her mum, as an elite female athlete, had done it before her.
“My mum was a female athlete herself, so I didn’t really see any difference between me and my brother,” Fleming says.
“So if my brother wanted to be an elite athlete, I could too because I guess I had mum and dad who were both elite athletes. I could kind of see the pathway and future.”
Just two years into her AFLW career, Fleming is already making a name for herself. She was considered one of the league’s most eye-catching prospects in her first season (despite working double-time to juggle her final year of school) and has continued to impress in the 2023 season.
“Looking back and reflecting on it, I kind of forget that I did do Year 12 while playing last year,” Fleming shares. “It was very challenging at certain points, especially when traveling, still needing to keep up with my school work…I didn’t really switch off for the whole year.”
Her goals for the rest of this season? Play to her strengths.
“It took me the nine games I played last year to start feeling comfortable at the elite level, so now it’s about using that experience to build and be confident in myself to be able to use my strengths,” Fleming says.
“The best thing for the team is if I can use my weapons. So that’s my goal, as well as working on my kicking and delivery to the forwards. That’s been a pretty big focus for myself.”
Fleming doesn’t take her place in the AFLW for granted, and says she is continually grateful for the women who have come before her, bringing the women’s game to where it is today.
“I’m very grateful for the time that I came into AFLW, how established it is, and for the people that got the game to where it is,” she says. “Now that I get to play in it, I want to help to continue to grow it. I do reflect on that a lot actually.”
“I’m really lucky to have a lot of people at Hawthorn who’ve been around women’s footy before the AFLW even existed. So I get to speak to them about their experiences. I’m very lucky that I got to have the opportunity to play footy since I was three years old.”
Looking forward, Fleming is set on being able to contribute to AFLW and Hawthorn for years to come.
“To be drafted to Hawthorn was a dream come true and not just to me, my whole family. For mum, dad and my two siblings, they’re pretty ecstatic that they didn’t have to change teams,” she says.
“To be able to say that I’m a Hawthorn player and co-vice captain of the club, it’s pretty cool. And it’s something that I don’t take lightly.”
Jas Fleming will be playing for Hawthorn versing the Sydney Swans this Saturday at Henson Park at 3.05pm.
You can find tickets to the game and all of the AFLW games taking place this weekend, here.