Ruby Schleicher ( ; born 16 March 1998) is an Australian rules footballer playing for the

Collingwood Football Club The Collingwood Football Club, nicknamed the Magpies or colloquially the Pies, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's elite competition. The club ...

in the

AFL Women's AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football league for female players. The first season of the league in February and March 2017 had eight teams; the league expanded to 10 teams in the 2019 season, ...

(AFLW). Schleicher is a dual AFL Women's All-Australian.

Early life and state football

As a junior

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player with the Willetton Tigers, Schleicher won the Western Australian Basketball League (WABL) Female Player of the Year award in 2014. She also represented the under-16 and the under-18 Western Australian Metropolitan teams. She was on the way to receiving a basketball scholarship at an American college, before breaking a

vertebra The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates, Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characterist ...

playing and half-a-year later breaking one on the other side while surfing, which as a result of the college decided not to risk her. In 2015, Schleicher was named in the Western Australian squad for the AFL Youth Girls National Championships. In 2016, she played with the WA Youth Girls team who made the Grand Final, before getting the opportunity to play senior football for her local WAWFL club

East Fremantle East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

. In her last game of the year she was the starting ruck for East Fremantle in the Grand Final. In the winter during the off-season between the

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

and

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

AFLW seasons, Schleicher decided to stay in Melbourne and play in the

VFLW VFL Women's (VFLW) is the major state-level women's Australian rules football league in Victoria. The league initially comprised the six premier division clubs and the top four division 1 clubs from the now-defunct Victorian Women's Football ...

with the St Kilda Sharks. She debuted with the St Kilda Sharks in their round 1 match against Eastern Devils, winning by one point.

AFL Women's career

Schleicher was selected by with pick 144, joining 22 other West Australians drafted in the inaugural AFL Women's draft, and was the youngest player drafted by Collingwood. She made her debut in round 1, 2017, in the inaugural AFLW match at IKON Park against . Collingwood re-signed Schleicher for the 2018 season during the trade period in May 2017. Collingwood re-signed Schleicher for the 2019 season during the trade period in June 2018. In the

2021 AFL Women's season The 2021 AFL Women's season was the fifth season of the AFL Women's competition, the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season featured fourteen clubs, ran from 28 January until 17 April, and comprised ...

, Schleicher was awarded with her maiden

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-performed players during the season, led by ...

blazer, named on the half back position. It was revealed Schleicher had signed on with Collingwood for two years on 10 June 2021. Schleicher achieved selection in Champion Data's 2021 AFLW All-Star stats team, after leading the league for total intercept possessions and intercept marks in the 2021 season.

Media

Schleicher joined

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

late in 2023 as a reporter for Fox Sports News. She also works on Fox Sports other show AFL Tonight. Schleicher also has a AFL original podcast called �
Tagged
�� with Richmond’s Sarah Hosking.

Statistics

''Updated to the end of the 2023 season''. , - ,

, , , , 18 , 5 , , 0 , , 0 , , 9 , , 6 , , 15 , , 0 , , 15 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 1.8 , , 1.2 , , 3.0 , , 0.0 , , 3.0 , , 0 , - ,

, , , , 18 , 5 , , 0 , , 0 , , 14 , , 6 , , 20 , , 6 , , 9 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 2.8 , , 1.2 , , 4.0 , , 1.2 , , 1.8 , , 0 , - ,

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

, , , , 18 , 6 , , 0 , , 0 , , 23 , , 13 , , 36 , , 9 , , 8 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 3.8 , , 2.2 , , 6.0 , , 1.5 , , 1.3 , , 0 , - ,

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in ...

, , , , 18 , 2 , , 0 , , 0 , , 8 , , 3 , , 11 , , 1 , , 2 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 4.0 , , 1.5 , , 5.5 , , 0.5 , , 1.0 , , 0 , - ,

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

, , , , 18 , 11 , , 2 , , 0 , , 115 , , 62 , , 177 , , 46 , , 29 , , 0.2 , , 0.0 , , 10.5 , , 5.6 , , 16.1 , , 4.2 , , 2.6 , , 2 , - , 2022 (S6) , , , , 18 , 11 , , 1 , , 0 , , 115 , , 83 , , 198 , , 54 , , 35 , , 0.1 , , 0.0 , , 10.5 , , 7.5 , , 18.0 , , 4.9 , , 3.2 , , 6 , - , 2022 (S7) , , , , 18 , 11 , , 0 , , 1 , , 116 , , 54 , , 170 , , 35 , , 48 , , 0.0 , , 0.1 , , 10.5 , , 4.9 , , 15.5 , , 3.2 , , 4.4 , , 3 , - ,

2023 Events Predicted and scheduled events * January 1 ** In the United States, books, films, and other works published in 1927 will enter the public domain, assuming there are no changes made to copyright law. ** Croatia will adopt the eu ...

, , , , 18 , 2 , , 0 , , 0 , , 14 , , 7 , , 21 , , 4 , , 7 , , 0.0 , , 0.0 , , 7.0 , , 3.5 , , 10.5 , , 2.0 , , 3.5 , , 0 , - class=sortbottom ! colspan=3 , Career ! 53 !! 3 !! 1 !! 414 !! 234 !! 648 !! 155 !! 153 !! 0.1 !! 0.0 !! 7.8 !! 4.4 !! 12.2 !! 2.9 !! 2.9 !! 11

Honours and achievements

* 2×

AFL Women's All-Australian team The AFL Women's All-Australian team is an all-star team of women's Australian rules footballers playing in the AFL Women's (AFLW), selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including interchange players and ...

, S6

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schleicher, Ruby Living people 1998 births Collingwood Football Club (AFLW) players Australian rules footballers from Perth, Western Australia Sportswomen from Western Australia