BY THE TIME the final siren sounds at the MCG to end the 2025 AFL Grand Final, the result hasn’t been in doubt for some time. A third-quarter surge saw the Brisbane Lions run out to a comfortable 47-point victory over Geelong, but that doesn’t make the roar any less deafening.
Red and blue confetti erupts into the Melbourne sky as grown men fall to their knees. In the middle of it all is Will Ashcroft, who, amid the chaos, runs straight for the sideline to find his younger brother in the crush of bodies. The two embrace, laughing in disbelief. This was something they dreamed about as kids. Now they’re living it, a childhood fantasy realised on football’s grandest stage.
“After the [2024] final against the Swans, I said to him ‘It would be pretty cool to do this together someday’,” the elder Ashcroft says. “To win alongside him and be in the locker room with him when a year earlier I was grabbing him over the fence was unreal.”
For the second year in a row, the Lions are premiers. And for the second year in a row, Ashcroft bent the biggest game of the season to his will. His stat line is clinical: 32 disposals, 10 clearances, 10 score involvements and a final-quarter goal. When the Norm Smith Medal is announced, the reaction is thunderous but not shocked. This is what Ashcroft does. A big game player if there ever was one.
When he climbs the dais to accept his medal, Ashcroft’s composure is striking. He speaks with gratitude, thanking his teammates first. At 21, he looks less like a prodigy riding momentum and more like a professional who has been through all of this before. Which, of course, he has.
A few months later, Ashcroft is on set with Men’s Health for his cover shoot, swapping between sportswear, tailored trousers and a crisp shirt. We’re at the Lions’ training ground, the Brighton Homes Arena, and Ashcroft has taken a liking to his new garms. The TAG Heuer watch that sits confidently on his wrist is what he admires with particular interest, however. It’s the new Formula 1-inspired Connected Calibre E5, a titanium beauty with racing motifs all over. Between frames, Ashcroft studies it, angling it toward the light.
Ashcroft carries no self-consciousness despite being new to photo shoots. He seems curious rather than cautious and relaxed rather than overwhelmed. This is his first shoot of this scale, though. There are stylists adjusting collars, a photographer calling for subtle changes in posture, racks of clothes waiting their turn. Ashcroft moves through it unbothered, attentive and engaged.
This is, I gather, how Ashcroft approaches life in general. But you would be wrong if you mistook his calmness for a lack of drive. Ashcroft is so focused, so dedicated to achieving a singular goal that he sometimes speaks in prophetic perfect tense – a literary technique usually reserved for religious texts, in which future events are considered so certain to happen that they are referred to as if they had already occurred. Ashcroft’s trajectory has never been set in stone, but given his commitment, it would be unwise to bet against anything he says he can do. It’s been that way his whole life.
ASHCROFT GREW UP around Aussie Rules. His father, Marcus Ashcroft, played 318 AFL games and was part of Brisbane’s all-conquering threepeat side in the early 2000s. His father’s achievements made an impression on Ashcroft from early on, and he always knew the path he wanted to follow. “From when I was about seven, I had that dream to play in the AFL,” he says. “I did other sports – rugby, swimming, athletics, cricket – but footy was always the one.”
Interestingly, though, he wasn’t born until the year after his father retired, so he never watched him play live. Instead, his idols were the midfielders of a later era: “Joel Selwood, Gary Ablett Jr, those are the guys I watched the most growing up,” he says. Both were long-serving club captains and premiership winners, you’ll note.
Even as a kid, Ashcroft gravitated toward responsibility. He was usually the best player on his team, but he was also the captain. His desire wasn’t just to play well; it was to lead by example and make others better. “I always felt driven to be the best,” he says simply, “but I wanted to elevate everyone around me, too.”
When he entered the AFL system, expectations were immediately high. A prized draft pick selected second overall under the father-son rule, Ashcroft was projected to become a star. Early returns suggested the hype was justified. He earned a Rising Star nomination in just his second game. In round seven, he scored what would later be awarded the goal of the year. By round 18, he had tallied 10 Brownlow votes. Then it all came crashing down. In round 19, Ashcroft ruptured his ACL, ending his season.
In Ashcroft’s absence, the Lions would go on to make a run to the 2023 grand final, but would ultimately fall to Collingwood by just four points. Ashcroft, watching from the sidelines, couldn’t help but feel he could’ve made a crucial difference. “At the time, it felt like the biggest thing I’d ever had to grapple with,” he admits. “I hadn’t had many injuries growing up. I’d never really missed football. And then ten seconds later, I’m out for 10 to 12 months.”
The injury forced him into a lengthy rehab period, which was “up and down,” he says, but it became an opportunity rather than a sentence. Suddenly, he had time to strengthen his body, refine his game and rework his mindset. “I had 11 months to work on myself in ways you can’t when you’re playing every week,” he says. “That mindset shift really set me up.”
Sports scientists often talk about forced adaptation – the idea that adversity compels athletes to evolve in ways comfort never would. After his ACL rupture, Ashcroft hadn’t just recovered, he had refined his game. He was stronger, more efficient in his running patterns and sharper in his decision-making. When he returned midway through the 2024 season, Brisbane were sitting 13th on the ladder. By season’s end they were fifth, thanks in no small part to Ashcroft elevating the midfield’s play. The Lions would go on to surge to a premiership. On grand final day, Ashcroft was awarded the Norm Smith medal, making him the youngest recipient since 1979.
“I was shell-shocked,” Ashcroft says, of the moment he was informed he had won the award. “With the whole ordeal of the last two years leading up to that, it felt like I had gone from right down the bottom to the top of the mountain. I was a bit overwhelmed to be honest.”
In 2025, Ashcroft proved it wasn’t just a lucky run when the Lions won the premiership again and he claimed the Norm Smith medal for a second time. It made him just the fifth player to win the award twice – and the youngest. His second premiership was doubly special because of his brother’s inclusion in the team. “He did so much work to get himself drafted, first of all, then he had to have a shoulder operation in his first preseason,” Ashcroft continues. “To build from that and play 27 games in his rookie season is pretty unbelievable.”
There’s something poetic about brothers winning together, but there’s also something instructive. Ashcroft’s ambition has never been solitary. He talks about ‘we’ more than ‘I’ and touts the importance of team success over individual milestones.
Now that the Lions have won two-straight, the question on everyone’s lips is whether history will repeat itself. Ashcroft doesn’t shy away from that expectation, but he doesn’t indulge it either. “That’s the goal,” he says. “That’s the carrot that we’re chasing. It’s important that we recognise it and understand how amazing it would be, but at the same time, we just need to focus on the process and not get ahead of ourselves.”
ON SET, AS another outfit is adjusted, Ashcroft is coiled but calm. This is, after all, a fair bit easier than a training day. Although Brisbane’s training model, he explains, is efficient rather than exhaustive. “It’s not about getting smashed every session,” he says. “A lot of it’s based on how you’re feeling. There’s a big focus on recovery.”
Still, Ashcroft layers his own extras on top. He does an additional upper-body session on weekends, swim training to build endurance without putting stress on his joints, and more running when required. The modern midfielder is part endurance athlete, part collision sport specialist. They routinely cover 12 to 13 kilometres per game, while also dealing with the most contact. Unsurprisingly, a higher level of fitness is required. “I’d be in the top tier,” Ashcroft says, when asked how he rates his fitness against the rest of his club. “But there are guys who can just fly around.”
At 21, Ashcroft owns a résumé most players spend their entire career working towards: two premierships, two Norm Smith medals and a reputation as a big-game performer. With that comes pressure, but that’s something Ashcroft has become accustomed to. “There’s extra pressure when you’ve performed in the past or you come in as a high draft choice,” he says. “You carry that all the way through your career. I see it as inevitable, really.”
Expectation doesn’t disappear after success, it compounds. But pressure is an uncontrollable, external factor, according to Ashcroft. He prefers to focus on what is in his control, like his own performance. “I can’t control what other people expect of me,” he says, “but I can control how I perform, and I’m not putting any limitations on what I can achieve this year.”
That distinction between uncontrollable narrative and controllable process is a cornerstone of high-performance psychology. Ashcroft works with Brisbane’s midfield coach and a mindset coach to refine that edge and use it to fuel his own performance, which is something he doesn’t cap by aiming for specific benchmarks. He acknowledges that it would be nice to win a Brownlow, but he doesn’t go into every game thinking about how many disposals he needs to tally, how many goals he needs to kick, or tackles he needs to make.
“It’s nice to win awards,” he says. “But they’re not something I write down as goals. I just want to be the best player and teammate I can be to help the team win.” He wants, in five or ten years, to be known not just as a winner but as a leader. Someone who helped others reach their potential. “Hopefully I’ve moved into the leadership group by then,” he says.
Time, in elite sport, is both abundant and fragile. At 21, Ashcroft is young enough to feel like he’ll play footy forever, but his ACL tear taught him how quickly it can all fall apart. Away from the club, he’s building something designed to outlast his playing days: a youth-focused health and fitness app. He’s hands-on in its development, shaping modules for different sports, integrating strength and conditioning principles and embedding educational components around general health.
“I was lucky with the schools and programs I was involved with growing up,” he says. “I wanted to create something that gives more kids access to that.” It’s not a vanity project. Ashcroft is laying the groundwork for life after football or, more accurately, life alongside it. He comes from the school of modern athletes who understand the fragility of sporting careers that, even in a best-case scenario, won’t last forever.
Despite reaching the pinnacle of his sport so early in his career, Ashcroft believes his best football is ahead of him. “Yeah, definitely,” he says, when asked if he has room to improve. “I’m not putting any limitations on what I can achieve. I’ve done a lot of work physically and mentally this offseason that I think will be reflected in the year ahead. I think I can still reach levels that I haven’t quite gotten to yet.”
In other words, for all he’s achieved, Ashcroft still feels as though he’s just warming up. This is just the beginning, he warns. And that’s a scary thought for the rest of the AFL. Ashcroft isn’t waiting around for what comes next, he’s charging towards it.
Words: Cayle Reid
Photography: Jamie Green
Head of Brand: Ben Jhoty
Creative Director & Stylist: Grant Pearce
Production Director: Rebecca Moore
Fashion Assistant: Paul Manio
Videographer: Jay Button
Grooming: Candice September
Digi Op: Paul Castle
Photo Assistant: Isabella Elordi
Design: Evan Lawrence
