Jacqui Vogt’s football career ending injury made way for a second chance, taking on the AFLW

An aspiring defender, Vogt looked up to players like former Matildas goalkeeper Melissa Barbieri, as she started to make her way through the junior football pathways.

Vogt was selected in Victorian representative teams, played for the Melbourne Victory in the W-League and attended young Matildas training camps.

But in 2012, her dreams were struck down.

Not long after she had been invited to attend the national team camps, Vogt ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament, which was to ultimately spell the end of her soccer career.

After a year of rehab, Vogt was unable to make the Melbourne Victory squad again.

A year in the second tier National Premier Leagues followed, before Vogt decided to take a year off to focus on her podiatry studies.

Vogt feared her hopes of playing elite sport were all but over.

“I probably thought my time was up and I had to move on,” Vogt, 27, said.

“But I wasn’t ready to move on, I was still young and I had always dreamt of being elite and playing elite sport.

“From a young age, I had always wanted to play for the Matildas. That was definitely my aspiration to play for them and even just to make a camp with the young Matildas was an amazing feeling.

“I did think that my time was up and I needed to do something at the community level but, for me, I just can’t do anything at that level.

“I need to try and be the best that I can be so I always want to push the barriers.”

Then the unexpected sporting career shift happened.

A St Kilda supporter growing up, Vogt noticed an advertisement for a VFL trial day for the club in 2017 and decided to give it a go.

“I always loved footy and thought it was amazing but there was no real pathway for females at that time when I was growing up and I was picking what I wanted to do,” Vogt said.

“So I had seen the AFL set up and thought it would be an amazing opportunity and thought that I could take some of what I had learned in soccer over to footy.”

Vogt hasn’t looked back - even if her transition to playing Aussie Rules initially presented a bumpy road.

After initially making the VFL training squad, Vogt was hit with another injury setback when she hurt her meniscus and needed surgery.

She returned playing local footy and worked hard to get herself fit for the 2019 VFL season with the Southern Saints but missed seven games that year after a nasty concussion.

Knowing the Saints would be entering the AFLW, Vogt kept at it with an eye to being drafted or elevated.

Vogt missed out that year but was invited to join the club as a train-on player for the club’s inaugural season as Covid hit and wiped out the VFL season. She would finally get her chance to join the AFLW list after being drafted ahead of season 2021.

Vogt missed just the one game in her debut season and, after spending all her time trying to stop goals as a defender in soccer, she is now relishing her new role as a forward.

“I was a centre-back and now I’m playing in the forward line for the Saints, so it’s definitely different,” Vogt said.

“But I think being able to read the game as a defender really helps as a forward. You know as a defender what you don’t like forwards to do so you try and do that as a forward.

“I obviously still have to learn a few things like running patterns and things like that but I feel like soccer has given me some really good concepts and things that I can take into footy.”

Despite her late start in footy, and injury setbacks, Vogt, who has recovered from off-season surgery on her ankle, is confident she still has plenty of time to carve out an AFLW career.

“Ideally I would have liked to have been younger, but I still think I have got some good footy in me,” said Vogt, who helps manage her parent’s hotel in Traralgon.

“I’ve had a few injury setbacks, there is no doubt about that with the knees and the recent surgery during the off-season for a fractured medial malleolus in my ankle, which I played all last AFL season with.

“But I always hold myself to high standards in terms of recovery which can hold you in good stead for longevity with your body.

“I think even though I’m 27 I still feel like I’ve got really good footy in me to come that’s for sure.

“I’m really glad that I went down to that trial day.”

How island paradise shaped Lions’ Magnetic captain

- Chris Honnery

A few kilometres off the coast of Townsville sits the grand, tropical haven of Magnetic Island – aptly named because of the way it attracts you in with its palm-fringed golden beaches and spectacular coral reefs.

It’s home to hundreds of koalas, countless schools of fish and a handful of resident rock wallabies.

It’s also the home of Brisbane Lions new skipper Bre Koenen.

The 26-year-old now lives in Brisbane but her parents still run a newsagency store on the island – which makes for a handy excuse for Koenen to get back to the tropical paradise as often as she can.

The island is only about 52 square kilometres in size – just slightly bigger than inner-city Melbourne – and exactly how you would picture a tropical Queensland getaway.

Palm trees, beaches, granite boulders and coral reefs – the perfect backdrop for any childhood.

“Every afternoon we were out on the beach or doing something outdoorsy,” Koenen recalled.

“It was pretty amazing.”

The eldest of four children, Bre has always harboured leadership qualities, especially when her siblings are as gifted as she is.

Her sister Cara is a foundation player for the Sunshine Coast Lightning netball team, her other sister Alyssa is a national representative in Surf Life Saving while her brother Dirk is another talented Aussie rules player.

And it was inevitable for the four athletic, competitive Koenen kids to butt heads every now and then.

“There were a lot of sibling rivalries between us,” Bre laughed.

“There were a lot of tears over board games and we’ve always been ultra competitive.

“We were always active growing up, always playing different sports together so that played a big part in getting to where I am today.

“As we’ve gotten older though, we’ve become a bit more supportive and we like to see each other succeed in our separate sports.”

Not very many sports were played solely on the island though, forcing the Koenen’s to travel onto the mainland and into Townsville to play each and every weekend.

There was, however, the Magnetic Island Magpies Junior AFL Club on the island which Bre played for since she was around five years old, sparking her love for footy from an early age.

Koenen tried her hand at several other sports during her junior years but it was always footy which proved to be her calling.

After taking a gap year when she finished Year 12, Koenen then moved down to Brisbane with her sister Cara, to begin a physiotherapy course at the University of Queensland – a move which she admitted to being an eye-opener to say the least.

“There’s not even any traffic lights back home so it was a big learning curve for me moving down to Brisbane,” she said.

“I definitely enjoyed it though.”

While at uni, Koenen joined the University of Queensland Red Lions squad where her footy career really took off – to the point where she took out the best and fairest award two years in a row.

“I had played a little bit of women’s footy (before UQ) but nothing to the level that south east Queensland was back then,” she said.

“It was massive for my development, playing for UQ.

“Being fresh out of high school, I had a lot to learn but I loved it.

“I learnt a lot during those years.”

Then came along the AFLW competition in 2017.

Koenen was Brisbane’s pick number 50 during the 2016 AFLW Draft to become one of the club’s foundation players.

Since then, Koenen has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the AFLW, becoming a crucial cog for the Lions since their inception and handed the vice captaincy during the club’s premiership-winning season in 2021.

So it was almost a no-brainer that her peers voted her in as the captain for the upcoming 2022 season.

“It was fairly unanimous that they wanted Bre to lead the team,” Lions head coach Craig Starcevich said.

“She’s got great off-field care for people.

“Anyone who doesn’t watch our games that doesn’t know the character or the person can just see in the way Bre plays that she is the type of person who upholds team values on the ground.

“She performs roles even at the detriment of her own personal performance as well as being skilful and tough as well.”

Teammate Emily Bates was also full of praise at the announcement.

“Bre has had an amazing leadership journey over the years,” Bates said.

“She’s just a really caring and supportive leader but she also plays by example.

“She will do anything we need to get the win.

“It’s a new chapter for our team and a very exciting one for Bre and all of us.”

Though the decision came somewhat as a surprise for Koenen, she admitted it was something she had been working hard to achieve over the last few years.

“My first thoughts were of shock and relief,” she said of being named the 2022 captain.

“It’s not something I thought about overnight or just decided on the spot, it’s something that I’ve put a lot of time and effort in developing myself personally and my relationships on and off the field.

“I’ve had very good leaders along the way to model what I try and do.”

There may not be the palm trees and golden beaches of her childhood in Brisbane, but Koenen – along with the rest of the AFLW reigning premiers – is still as competitive-driven as she was with her siblings back on the idyllic Magnetic Island.

“The reason we play is to win a premiership but this year we’re taking the approach of it being a completely new season,” she said.

“We haven’t played any teams yet, there’s been a lot of list changes this year and it’s a completely new comp.

“We tasted that success last year and it almost makes you more hungry to taste that again.

“Everyone is pretty competitive and driven at training at the moment.

“Hopefully we can back it up again this year.”