In season, a day for Ebony Marinoff may include the following – a morning Pilates session, walking her dog, Luna, video review and individual skills session, treatment, leadership meeting, team training, and then if it’s a Tuesday night cooking dinner for some teammates.
Fortunately for Ebony Marinoff, she was born in 1997.
That meant that, like her teammates Erin Phillips and Chelsea Randall, she played football as a kid. She played in boys’ junior teams just like the others.
She loved Auskick and played her first competitive game at age 5 with the Lockleys footy club. She could handle the ball and herself, undeterred by – and matching – the energy of the boys.
Then when she turned 12, this is where the two stories part ways. Erin Phillips and Chelsea Randall could no longer play with the boys at that age and there were no competitions for girls.
In the early 2000s, when Ebony was still a primary school kid in Adelaide’s western suburbs, the NAB Auskick program was creating junior competitions for girls.
Seamlessly, she finished at Lockleys at age 12 and later moved to the Morphettville Park to play in an all-girls team.
It became the trajectory of a champion from there – selected in SA State junior and senior teams. At 18, she was named in the youth girls’ All-Australian team.
A day in the life of Ebony Marinoff as filmed for the Adelaide Football Club’s website, reveals an insatiable hunger for refining her skills, making-ready her body, and trumping opponents.
The day may include a morning Pilates session, walking her dog, Luna, a video performance review and individual skills session with Head of Development Courtney Cramey, rehab treatment, leadership meeting, weights session, team training, massage, swimming and spa, and then if it’s a Tuesday night cooking dinner for some teammates.
“Ebony Marinoff is relentless in the pursuit of getting better,” says AFLW Head of High Performance at the AFC, Jordan Sellar. “She’s always looking for an edge in those spaces.”
Equally over the years, she has learned to balance that schedule, refining her knowledge around what she needs and when, rather than going full pelt all the time.
The combination of drive and maturity manifested in the sport’s highest individual award, named as the 2024 AFLW’s Best and Fairest. In the same year, the then 27-year-old was appointed the Crows’ co-captain with Sarah Allan.
She is a three-time premiership player, seven-time AFL Women’s All-Australian and three-time Adelaide Club champion winner.
