In the book of AFLW, rarely has a page been written without reference to Jasmine Garner.
She scored the competition’s first goal in 2017 for Collingwood. She has played more games than all but a handful of players. She was part of a recruitment drive at expansion club North Melbourne. She has gone through position changes, won six All-Australian blazers and she has been one of the league’s big improvers over its eight seasons.
After being named All-Australian captain last year, the 29-year-old has won the AFL Coaches Association champion player this year, for the third time. She is also favourite for the AFL Players’ MVP to be awarded on Tuesday night.
But Garner’s greatest story could be written this week. Her North Melbourne side is preparing for its first grand final at Ikon Park on Sunday against powerhouse Brisbane. Garner will be a key protagonist.
On Sunday, after the Kangaroos booked their place in the grand final, the North Melbourne coach, Darren Crocker, said Garner has been outstanding for years but this season had taken her game to “another level”.
“She had an unbelievable off-season, which set her up for a terrific pre-season, she’s just carried it all the way through,” he said.
Garner is fourth in the competition for disposals, but her distribution is rarely ruffled: of the top 10, no player had fewer clangers. She leads the inside-50s count with 80, 10 more than Ebony Marinoff in second place. But her effort goes both ways; she is just outside the competition’s top 10 in tackles.
The Sydney Swans coach, Scott Gowans, formerly of the Kangaroos, was helpless last year in the only meeting between his club, in their inaugural season, and the Kangaroos. That day North Melbourne won 9.13 (67) to 1.0 (1). Garner had two first-half majors, the second-most disposals and most tackles in a dominant display.
“She’s almost impossible to tag because she’s so strong,” Gowans says. “So if you run a player with her she’ll just explode out of the stoppages in the contest and you’re almost wasting a player.
“You’re actually better to pick her up from the outside but it’s easier said than done because she’s pretty good sideways and if you give her any sort of room, she’ll drive the ball long. She’s probably right up there with one of the better players in the comp.”
Garner was originally recruited to Collingwood from the St Kilda Sharks as the 86th player in the inaugural AFLW draft, with a prolific goal-kicking record in the VFLW. Initially she was used mostly a marking forward, but also found herself in defence at times. But under Gowans at North Melbourne in 2020, Garner made the move into midfield.
“She really had to work her butt off to get the fitness up to then go in the midfield and it was actually [then list manager] Rhys Harwood’s idea that she go in the midfield,” he says. “I thought he was a little bit crazy at the start, but credit to her she really worked hard and then she just worked on her craft when she got her fitness that level.”
He said not many players can make that transition.
“Just the resilience to come from where she was when she first came into AFLW, she really came in as a forward and then had to get her fitness up which sounds easy, but it’s actually not.”
Garner is now the standard-bearer at Arden Street, where 21-year-old Irish defender Erika O’Shea describes her as “one of the best players in competition, if not the best”.
“She’s incredible and she comes to training and has the attitude that she has more to learn and if she has that attitude, that’s what I want to be like too,” O’Shea says. “People like that I suppose keep you grounded as well.”
But not everyone in the game has acknowledged her brilliance. Since 2020, Garner has been largely overlooked by umpires in voting for the AFLW best and fairest award, despite wider accolades.
Last year, although she was named All-Australian captain, Garner polled barely half the votes of the winner, Ally Anderson from Brisbane. This year, despite her third Coaches Association award, her modest tally again shocked those in the game. She finished outside the top five, behind winner Monique Conti from Richmond, and even teammate Ash Riddell.
Kangaroos ruck Kim Rennie says her teammates are desperate to see Garner – who is a landscaper by trade – receive the recognition they believe she deserves. “She might have to bring the high-viz vest from work to the game on the weekend, might have to whip that one out,” Rennie says.
But Crocker said on Sunday that this week’s announcements on individual accolades – which include Tuesday night’s Players’ MVP award – won’t phase her.
“She’s now in a grand final, and she’ll just be planning and preparing to help the team win,” he said. “That’s just the person she is.”
