Brazill reflects on year out of netball

By Sophie Taylor

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who has crammed as much into a year as former Origin Diamond Ash Brazill.

She claimed Netball World Cup glory, before retiring from the sport. Only to hit the track for Collingwood’s AFLW team a few weeks later. Brazill has then travelled across Australia in a van with her wife and kids.

All before relocating to Perth where she joined the Freo Dockers.

Her netball career had been a turbulent one. Full of highs and lows, including a knee reconstruction. But through all that the champion wing defence, affectionately known as ‘Braz’, knew when and how she wanted to call time on her career.

“I was lucky never to fall out of love with the game,” Brazill explained.

Brazill’s self-confessed childhood dream is well documented: to win a gold medal.

That achievement came to fruition in 2022 following the Origin Diamonds’ Commonwealth Games victory in Birmingham.

A Netball World Cup title followed in 2023; that gold medal match coinciding with Brazill’s final netball match at the elite level.

“Going out with a World Cup, retiring from netball after that has been pretty easy, because it was my decision,” Brazill said.

“I always wanted to represent my country and walk away with a gold medal. That was always a dream so to get that at Comm Games, I could have easily walked away from netball then.”

A self-confessed ‘netball geek’, it could have been a challenge for Brazill to transition away from the sport.

Instead, it couldn’t have gone smoother.

“I went to watch Suncorp Super Netball Round 1 and I remember Brooke turning to me in the crowd like, ‘I don't reckon many players that, in their first game since retiring, would ever come and watch a game, and actually enjoy it and be excited by watching people they know,’” Brazill recalled.

“I think I'm in a pretty good space with netball in that way.”

The talented dual athlete returned to Melbourne after World Cup glory to an AFL Women’s preseason in full swing, eventually making her return to elite sport in Collingwood’s AFLW side, at the club where she historically played for both the AFLW and netball teams.

And even after the events of 2023 which included Collingwood handing back its Suncorp Super Netball license, Brazill has no hard feelings.

“Collingwood will always mean so much to me,” she explained.

“Being someone that was there from year one to the end, I played my best netball at that club. I made the Diamonds out of that club.

“I still think of Collingwood as family.”

Brazill’s AFLW journey has continued since then, albeit no longer with Collingwood.

She now resides in Perth with her wife, Brooke, and children Louis and Franka, playing for Fremantle in the AFLW competition.

But was it an easier transition away from netball because of her access to the high-performance environment of an AFLW club?

No, not necessarily.

“I'm lucky I've still got my high-performance sport, but it’s not the only thing that's keeping me happy,” Brazill said.

Unsurprisingly, it was her family which made the transition easier.

The Brazill family packed up their home in Melbourne last December and set off for a six-month caravan trip around Australia, finishing it off with a trip across the Nullabor to their new home in Western Australia.

“Regardless of if we were here (in Perth), that was my year of retirement. That was the year we were ready to come home and have our kids be around family and start our new life over here,” Brazill explained.

“The fact that I'm back over here with family and seeing my kids run around in the lifestyle we want them to want them to grow up in, that's what's cementing the happiness feeling to me.”

Brazill’s dream to be a mum has never gotten in the way of her sporting career, instead enriching it.

“I always wanted to be a mum, ever since I was like a little kid,” Brazill said.

“To now be a parent and have lived my dream in the netball world, to know that both of them were able to see me in my element was something pretty special.”

With Louis set to start school next year and spending much of his younger years in Covid hubs, it was important for the Brazill family to have some time together before settling in WA.

“That was another big reason for making the call. My family had to make sacrifices for me, and I didn't want that to ever happen to them again,” Brazill said.

“So when I did make the retirement call and we were coming back to WA, we planned to travel Australia and have that time with the family, but most of all show Louis that the world is bigger than a hotel room or a bedroom apartment.”

Travelling Australia with her family “meant everything” to Brazill.

“To be able to travel Australia with our kids and show them how big and how beautiful our country is, and not just that, but the family time that we've got with each other on the road for seven months…” Brazill recalled.

“They're memories that we'll have forever.”

Like many things in life, the Brazill family’s journey across the country did not entirely go as planned.

Unexpected changes in plans, navigating floodwaters in northern Queensland and returning to Brazill’s home state of NSW gave her some other exciting opportunities.

“One of the best things was, while we covered Australia, I did some clinics on the road,” Brazill said.

“I was expecting a clinic here and there and sometimes ended up with six to nine clinics at the one association.”

Brazill relished the opportunity to connect with the people who make those regional netball communities tick.

“Meeting all these young kids and remembering where our sport started for me,” Brazill recalled.

“Getting to know the committee members, to see how dedicated they are and how much they love netball, and to have that shared connection with these people that we've only just met but feel like I've known them forever was something pretty special.”

While Brazill’s on-court career is now firmly in the past, the former champion does not rule out a return to the sport in the future – but perhaps from a slightly different angle.

I love to coach, so who knows what will happen?” Brazill said, having recently taken on an assistant role at Peel Lightning in the Western Australian Netball League.

“That was something I did enjoy while I was traveling and doing these clinics, I just loved having those conversations with other coaches and talking about how to see the game,” Brazill explained.

“I'm currently doing a media role at Fremantle. So maybe that could be my way back into the sport, and then eventually coaching, who knows?”