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Suzie Miller has been mulling over the idea for play centred around the AFLW since witnessing the inaugural grand final at the venue formerly known as Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast in March 2017 when Adelaide defeated the Brisbane Lions.

Suzie Miller, seated, with three of the stars of Strong Is The New Pretty, from left, Edyll, Amy Ingram and Nyasha Ogden.Audrey Richardson

“I grew up in Melbourne, so you’d think I’d be a massive AFL fan,” Miller says. “But as a young girl I thought: how come it’s just boys? So I didn’t really invest in it the way other people did.

“It didn’t even occur to me that maybe girls could play AFL. So I was blown away when the AFLW came to pass. I thought, how many other areas in the world do we not envisage that this is a possible place to have equality until we actually see it happen before us?”

Miller rolled up her sleeves and interviewed players, coaches, commissioners, people involved at the grassroots – “everyone you could imagine”.

“They had to get over all the hurdles of ‘how are we going to get sponsorship?’ ‘How are we going to get media on board?’ Because every single person had the same view: ‘Oh, no, women don’t play football’.”