In the wake of Will Ashcroft winning another premiership and, almost, claiming a third Norm Smith Medal, it’s worth reading this Good Weekend profile on him from earlier in the season.
It didn’t look too bad on the telly. There was young Will Ashcroft, chasing the ball into a pack, as he is prone to do, surrounded by players much bigger than his 182-centimetre, 82-kilogram self. Suddenly he was on the ground, sandwiched between two Geelong Cats players, his right leg planted in one direction as the ball bounced off in another. So par-for-the-course did it seem for Aussie rules that the camera moved on, following the ball down the field. It took a few beats for the cameraman to realise something was happening behind play and to pan back. There, lying on the ground, holding his knee, was the Brisbane Lions midfielder. Moments later the physios swooped in, and a few moments after that Ashcroft hobbled off the ground, pain etched across his face. It was July 22, 2023, midway through the fourth quarter of a round-19 AFL match at the Gabba, the Lions’ home turf. The day Will Ashcroft ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament. The worst day of his then-19-year life.
Will Ashcroft has pedigree on his side. But his path to success involved other factors, too – plenty of children of star athletes don’t ever achieve great heights.Paul Harris
You might say this means Will Ashcroft has had a pretty blessed life, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Eldest child of former Lions triple premiership player Marcus Ashcroft and PE teacher Bekky, Ashcroft has been marinated in sport his whole life. Indeed, been a star his whole life: winning at school swimming and athletics, captaining his Gold Coast school’s rugby union team, moving south in year 10 to Melbourne’s Brighton Grammar, where two years later he was footy co-captain and best-and-fairest. Leading the U18s Aussie rules team, the Sandringham Dragons, to grand final victory in 2022, captaining the U18 All-Australian team that year.
Drafted to his father’s old club, the Brisbane Lions, for a hotly anticipated 2023 debut, playing every match in the first half of that season, gunning for the 2023 Rising Star award. Then: a fleeting moment of bad luck, one necessitating a knee reconstruction and the best part of a year off footy.
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