Mum of three dreams of premiership glory

Ash Sharp wasn’t sure if or when she’d be able to return this WAFLW season with Swan Districts, but not only has she done that, she’s the league’s leading goal scorer and is now dreaming of a first premiership as a mother.

Sharp’s plan was to return to play at Swan Districts in 2025 and that did end up happening for one game at least when she kicked a goal in the Round 1 victory against East Perth.

However, those playing plans were put on hold as she went through the pregnancy for her third child before giving birth late in 2025 to Ashanti joining sons Spencer and Shayden in the growing household.

Sharp had talked to Swans’ WAFLW coach Jason Burton about returning to play in 2026 and it was in the plans, but even she was surprised she was ready to go for Round 1 and has never looked back.

Despite having to juggle life with three young children, Sharp has starred with Swan Districts this season and is clearly the league’s leading goalkicker having now kicked 38 goals along the way in 17 matches in 2026.

She kicked two more of them in Sunday’s heart stopping one-point second semi-final victory against Claremont that now has Swan Districts as the first team into the WAFLW Grand Final on Sunday August 23 at Fremantle Community Bank Oval.

Sharp now isn’t afraid to dream of what it would be like to win her first premiership as a mother next Sunday.

“I have started putting some plans in place for what’s going to happen on the Monday after the Grand Final,” Sharp said.

“My young one will still have school so normally we’re up at 6:30 for a school day and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do that after the Grand Final.

“So we’ve got that already organised for the Monday but they will all be there on the Sunday and my partner will bring them along so that’s going to be very special. I haven’t won a Grand Final since having children so it will be my first one if it all goes well for us.”

Only fitting it was another one-point game

Looking back to Sunday’s second semi-final against Claremont at Steel Blue Oval and given the recent history between the two teams and for Swans in general in their recent finals appearances, it was only fitting in a lot of ways it was an eventual one-point result.

“We knew it was going to be an absolute cracker of a game and Jason told us that the last four finals that the girls have played have been one-point, two points, one-point and one-point,” Sharp said.

“So it’s just fitting that we won by one-point on the weekend and just that relief knowing that we’re back in the Grand Final meant it was an awesome feeling to hold on at the end of it.”

Plenty of emotions to reach Grand Final

Understandably having just beaten the same team they lost to in last year’s Grand Final by a point and beating them by a point to reach another decider in 2026, and the emotions were running high for Sharp and all her Swan Districts teammates on Sunday after the win.

“There was relief, excitement and there was so many words I could use about how we were feeling,” Sharp said.

“It doesn’t matter where you finish on the ladder, once you get to finals you never know who can get up and we knew that with Claremont we’d lost to them during the season so it was always going to be a cracking game.

“Lucky it was us that were in front because it went right down to the final seconds and we were able to get the win.”

This Swan Districts team of 2026

As for this Swan Districts team that Sharp is part of in 2026, it’s still remarkable for her to think that she is the oldest player in the team and she isn’t even 30 yet.

There are the likes of Jess Cox, Demi Liddle, Lauren Quaife, Chloe Reilly, Naomi Baker, Eliza Gelmi, Taylah Edwards and Kayley King who are all experienced WAFLW players, but they are all young in terms of the real world still having started their careers young.

You throw in the teenagers that have received WAFLW opportunities this season too while still eligible to play Rogers Cup and Sharp can clearly see how well set up things at Swans are for sustained success.

“It’s crazy to think that there are so many girls that are still under the age of 21 in our side, it’s almost over half of them,” Sharp said.

“It’s so good to see and like on the weekend, probably two years ago we wouldn’t have been able to handle that pressure against Claremont and probably would have lost the game.

“It shows the development over the last few years with how far they’ve come and even myself, I’m the oldest on the team and I’m 29.

“It just shows that the future at the club is super strong and we’ve had so many 15, 16-year-olds debut this year and it’s really set the club up for the future.”

Amazing season of Jaime Henry

As someone who has played 34 games in the AFLW herself as well at the Fremantle Dockers, Sharp still can’t believe that one of her teammates hasn’t received an opportunity at the next level.

Jaime Henry has produced perhaps the best individual season ever seen in the WAFLW competition but still hasn’t had an AFLW look in with Sharp marvelling at her incredible work ethic to become the player that she now is.

“I don’t think you can even put words to her season and everyone can see how good she is on the field, but no one else really sees what she does off the field,” Sharp said.

“I’m pretty sure she’s up at 4:30am every day and she’s working hard in the gym, she swims and she puts all this work in. She’s got her body so right and it’s paid off, and it’s rewarding her on the field now.

“She’s having an absolute cracker of a season but she puts in all that hard work behind the scenes that no one sees.

“I’m still so shocked that she has not been picked up by an AFLW club, I don’t know what more she can do, but she’s set herself up perfectly hopefully for that to happen next year if one of the clubs wake up to realise how good she is.”

A whirlwind to get back to playing

When Sharp found out she was pregnant last year, she did sit down with Swans coach Burton and the pair agreed on a rough outline of a return to play for her sometime in 2026.

But that has gone better to script than either could have imagined and Sharp couldn’t be more thankful of how it’s all panned out.

“It’s been an absolute whirlwind and I remember sitting down with Jason last year and I said that I did want to come back this year, but if I had no idea if that would be for the start of the season or if I’d be ready by the middle of the year,” Sharp said.

“Obviously going through a pregnancy and child birth, you never know how you’re going to recover and we just left it that we hoped to have some return to play at some point this year.

“Then I ended up coming down to pre-season about five weeks after I had Charny and just eased back into it, and somehow managed to get back for Round 1 which I think surprised both me and him because we originally said whenever I was able to come back would be a great surprise.

“The team has been great too and everyone talks about my goalkicking or whatever, but I couldn’t do it without my teammates winning the ball and getting it down to me. It’s been crazy and hopefully we’ve got one more win to come.”

Enjoying playing footy as a mum

Rather than feeling like playing football and the commitments of getting to training and everything is a grind while juggling a hectic home life with the three children, Sharp actually feels like it’s an important escape for her.

Often it can be easy for a mum to forget she’s still her own person given how full on raising your children will be especially having three of them as young as Sharps are, but she finds having football as that little bit of an escape gives her life a good balance.

“I’m lucky enough to still be a stay at home mum so I’m with them all day and actually footy is like my outlet,” Sharp said.

“I find that when I get to footy training I’m glad I can actually go and talk to people because after being at home with the kids all day, it’s nice to actually have a conversation with some adults.

“So I get to training and finally get out and enjoy getting to run around, and the boys are a bit older now so they love getting to come down when they can too and also coming to as many games as they can.

“They absolutely love it and the girls all get around them and it’s a nice little outlet to have a break from home and get down to footy which is super nice.”

What playing future looks like

With sons Spencer and Shayden now looking to start their own sporting journeys, Sharp knows it’s going to become more and more difficult to continue to juggle playing football herself.

She is still feeling good enough to continue physically beyond this year, but there will be plenty more she has to weigh up moving forward even though she would love to keep playing.

“I feel like my body can play for longer, but I just haven’t really made my mind up yet because of the commitment with the kids,” Sharp said.

“It is very hard to commit to training and now they’re starting their own sport which takes up the time slot of when I’d be training too so it is a very big juggle.

“I’m not going to say that it’s the end just yet and my body’s still managing to play somehow and I don’t even know how really.

“But the aspiration is still there to play and I’ve got a good family support system which has helped me commit this year, and hopefully we can keep that going.”