Alicia Eva may have come to GIANTS HQ at 26 years of age, but she’ll tell you she grew up at the club.

“Some of my life’s biggest challenges and joys have been experienced and built here and I’ve shared that with my family - these girls are my family,” Eva says.

“The term family gets thrown around a lot in the footy atmosphere, but it is real here. We’ve had some significant hurdles, things far bigger than football. 

“A lot of us have grown up here.”

Though footy began for her at the park across the road from her East Malvern house in Melbourne two decades earlier, sharing breakfast table conversations with her brother and parents about the Melbourne Demons or her performance at Auskick on the weekend, it wasn’t until her move to New South Wales in 2018 that she really understood what Australian Rules football meant away from the Victorian heartland.

“I went down to Auskick with my school mates at the age of six, down at East Malvern and stayed there until the age of 18,” Eva recalls of her first experiences in the game.

“I went all the way through junior footy with the boys and then was lucky enough to be part of the first-ever youth AFL girls’ team.

“I’ve been playing all the way through since the age of five.

“I just lived and breathed footy. On car rides, my brother and I would sing every club song, I had David Neitz up on my wall, I knew every player from the Melbourne footy club.”

Given playing professionally was unthinkable at 18, Eva picked up coaching. First at East Malvern, then in the Victorian talent pathways at Vic Metro.

“It was an amazing time, you could see the talent coming through; Ellie Blackburn, Maddy Prespakis, Mon Conti, Jaz Garner to name a few,” Eva says.

Seeing the level of talent at the underage level and being privy to – and beneficiary of – the increasing investment in youth girls football meant Eva could sense the change to come in the women's game.

“These young girls were phenomenal and even at VFLW level, you’re running around with the likes of Daisy Pearce, Em Kearney, Paxy [Karen Paxman], so we knew that we were creating something and creating enough noise that the AFL couldn’t ignore it for much longer,” she says.

“The talent and football being played, particularly at the under 18 level was at such a quality that we fast tracked AFLW.”

She was enjoying a rare period away from footy and was in Croatia when the call came from her Dad that a national women’s league was being established.

Eva gave herself a three-month buffer to find her way from the Adriatic Sea into the league.

“It was so special,” Eva recalls of draft night, where she was taken at pick #54 by Collingwood.

“The buzz, the excitement, for particularly a lot of women who had been part of the process, not just that year but in the lead up.

“There’d been so many women who had missed their opportunity just through age who were in that room and it was so special for them to see what they had created.”

Yet it was the second season, when she made her way north to the GIANTS that Eva began to understand the impact of the AFLW and the immaturity of the game away from its southern heartland.

“I had a number of friends who had come up to the GIANTS from Melbourne who threw their hat in the ring to make the move up here and speaking to a lot of them, it was so different to my experience with Collingwood,” Eva says.

“You’re moving up to what we thought of as a rugby state.

“There were exceptional footballers up here, look at Amanda Farrugia, Courtney Gum, but there weren’t as many and footy wasn’t as big.”

She knew the challenge would be immense but what the GIANTS offered was more than a playing opportunity.

It was a chance to be part of something bigger than success on the field.  

“The club came to me and said we want you to play, first and foremost and to come and be part of this young group and develop them but we also want to give you the opportunity to develop your coaching,” Eva says.

She met with Alan McConnell, who was yet to be announced as the AFLW head coach for the 2018 season but was a looming figure at the club.

“The second person I sat down with was Leon Cameron, the head coach of the AFL program,” Eva says.

“He was interested in my coaching and wasn’t trying to sell the club to me. It was almost like a job interview; asking what would I bring to the GIANTS? What would the quality of my work be like? What can I expect you to do here?”

“I walked away thinking, this isn’t a gimmicky role, they’ve done their research, they know what I’ve done as a coach what I’d bring as a player, and it made me realise this is something I need to think about seriously.

“I thought, this is the right time for me to make this leap of faith. It might be great, it might be scary, it might completely sink.’

“From an AFL club perspective, I went from one of the biggest clubs in Australia to the newest and at that point, the smallest.”

Eva signed with the club ahead of the 2018 season where she was elevated to vice-captain and immediately fell into step with both McConnell and team captain, Amanda Farrugia.

“I clicked with Fridge [Amanada Farrugia] really quickly,” Eva says.

“She had this determination to not only be the best footballer she could be, but you could tell that she approached everything with a sense of responsibility to grow the game up here but to also say, look at what we’ve created with barely any pathways.

Eva began to understand what that lack of access meant when she began a role coaching with the U18 AFL NSW/ACT Rams programs, giving her a firsthand look at the lack of opportunity for youth and especially young girls, wanting to play the game at the top level

“That was really eye-opening,” Eva says.

“I’d worked in the under 18 pathway down in Melbourne and those players had access to coaches at least once a week, sometimes twice and the talent they were training with was A grade.

“Coming up here it was really different.

“Geographically, we could only get the girls together maybe once a month. We had a lot of talent coming out of the Riverina, out west, nothing was centralised.

“When I came up here, I talked to my colleagues and friends back in Melbourne and I’d say, the pathway is 15 years behind up here.”

Eva could see the talent was there and rife, training alongside local products Rebecca Beeson and Alyce Parker, but the inability to develop it with so many barriers gave new light to what a national game meant, and why her captain, Farrugia, was so determined to see the GIANTS succeed.

“I could understand why she felt such determination,” Eva said of her former captain.

“She was almost putting NSW on her back was about wanting people to take notice and say look at the talent we do have here, let’s make footy and that talent more accessible.”

In her eight seasons with the club, Eva has developed her own dedication to see that talent pathway grow and is getting a first person view on the effect the AFLW is having in Western Sydney and NSW.

Now playing alongside homegrown recruits like Georgia Garnett, Tarni Evans, Alyce Parker and 2025 newcomers Caitlin Fletcher and Sophie Kavanagh, Eva believes it’s a testament to the club’s culture that the GIANTS can attract such talent, but more critically, retain it.

“Something that our club has always done really well is the culture piece and I think what isn’t spoken about enough is retaining talent,” Eva believes.

“I know a lot of competitions have come after our homegrown talent with significant offers, but they’ve stayed here. 

“That’s what I’m proud of, the culture that we’ve built here. We’ve got some pretty big names and they’re still here and we’re working towards something that we know will be really special when success comes.”

“Growing this club, the passion we have here, the passion we have for fans and the talent we have here in Western Sydney and NSW is palpable.

“We’ve just got to create more opportunities to get these players through our doors and have them running out on the field and the big stage.

“We’re working towards something and it’s a really special place to be and that’s why we want success.”

The GIANTS historic 10th season of AFLW is kicking off this August, and we don’t want you to miss a moment! 

This year, we're turning up the value with ‘10 Seasons, 10 Perks’ - featuring 10-member exclusive benefits that deliver real value and elevate your season.

In 2025, we will be interesting an AFLW member of the week! Each week throughout the home and away season a member will be drawn to enjoy one of our inner sanctum experiences, from coffee with a player to behind-the-scenes captains run experiences, there is no better way to get insider access than as an AFLW member