Fremantle veteran Ash Brazill on her Pride and how Dockers plan to fix scoring woes

Ash Brazill is the engine room of the Fremantle defence – and the heart of Pride Round.

There will be 120 hearts on her Dockers’ jumper over the next two rounds - each hand-drawn by Fremantle players and staff to create rainbow chevrons - beginning with Sunday’s clash against second-placed Melbourne at Fremantle Oval.

Pride Round means “everything” to Brazill, an openly gay cross-code athlete who began her elite journey as a netballer and has carved out a celebrated AFLW career at Collingwood and now the Dockers.

“Coming from a different sport where it didn’t have a pride round and being an open gay athlete, I wish as a young kid there were games like this so I could feel comfortable in my own skin,” Brazill said.

“I remember coming through as a little kid knowing I wanted to play for Australia, but never seeing anyone gay play netball before.

“I honestly believed if I ever came out or was myself, I wouldn’t get selected.

“Being the first open netballer was a big thing for me. And to now look at all these kids who can just be themselves, run around, chase a footy and not have to worry about who they are, where they’re from … it’s a pretty big thing.

“It was just so natural for the (AFL) W space to lift the Pride Round up, and it would not be a big thing.

“A lot of people are expecting us to wave rainbow flags in their face week in, week out. But in the end, it’s just a game, and we’re very proud to own this space, and I guess be who we are.”

Brazill, 35, will provide the cornerstone of a defence up against one of the competition’s best attacks, led by Tayla Harris and Eden Zanker, but with multiple options, including midfielder Kate Hore, who sits equal fifth on the AFLW goalkicking table with 14.

In what will be a last throw at the dice for finals action for 13th placed Fremantle, their coach Lisa Webb said all the games were big at the moment.

The Dockers are coming off successive losses on the road to Carlton and Hawthorn, the latter defeat coming despite the Dockers having six more inside 50s.

”Disappointed to have two losses on the road, but I believe we can beat any team we come up against, and Melbourne are a really good team,” Webb said.

“They’ve obviously got some really good players. We beat them last year, so we’re in a good spot to be able to learn some of the things from that and go forward again.

“We’ve been just a little bit off, so we have to tweak a few things.”

The Dockers’ other issue, apart from wins is percentage, 64, the fourth lowest in the competition.

“We had 26 inside 50s in the last quarters of both games and we couldn’t score, so we have to get better,” Webb said.

“We need to put more scoreboard pressure on the board. These tight games are hurting us ... and the composure of decision making as well.

“We’ve been dropping some marks which we wouldn’t normally drop. And I think we had four in the last quarter against Carlton, and they’re hard to get those marks.

“You really want to capitalise and we haven’t, so a bit of the mindset of composure, execution under pressure, especially in key moments of the game.”