Jess Webster (centre) called her first game for a Fox Footy AFL match. Photo: Instagram.
Richmond great Jack Riewoldt went a little left field when he awarded ‘three votes’ in Sunday’s AFL game in which North Melbourne upset Port Adelaide at Marvel Stadium to someone who didn’t even get a kick.
But the football world says Riewoldt was right on the money when he saluted Fox Footy commentary debutant Jess Webster.
Known across AFL and AFLW ranks as a proud Queenslander, Webster called the game with veteran commentator Dwayne Russell and experts Riewoldt and Cam Mooney.
Having previously done play-by-play radio commentary on the ABC and Triple M, she stepped up to television duties in outstanding fashion, winning widespread acclaim across the media and with a new-found adoring public.
“There were nerves but I just wanted to enjoy it,” Webster told SEN on Monday.
“This has been a dream for me since I was a kid. I wanted to enjoy the moment and celebrate being there.
"I was like a little kid. It was awesome. I was very happy to get there and get my opportunity.”
The 36-year-old called North Melbourne’s 46-point win with aplomb and footy fans were full of praise for her TV debut behind the microphone.
Russell wrote on Instagram: “Great honour for me to sit next to the next big superstar of sport broadcasting! Thanks @foxfooty Brilliant again today Jess!!”
Riewoldt and Fox Footy’s Sarah Jones also wrote messages of support, while the ABC’s Catherine Murphy commented: “Congrats” and Channel 9’s Charles Croucher said: “Well done Webby - you should be immensely proud.”
ESPN’s Jasper Chellappah added: “Superstar. Jess Webster is just an out and out gun caller. Been lucky to have her on the Ms, crushed it calling on Fox today. How good.” And AAP’s Oliver Caffrey said: “Absolute star. All-time debut.”
The proud Queensland product has followed in the footsteps of Fox Footy’s Kelli Underwood, becoming the second female AFL caller on TV.
Fox Footy’s Jess Webster and Dwayne Russell. Photo: Instagram.
“It’s been a very, very long journey,” Webster told the Herald Sun last week. “Since I was a kid I dreamed of it, this is my 17th year in the industry so it’s been a slow burn.
“Everyone has their own pathway, mine has been a slow burn, some have a meteoric rise to the top it just hasn’t been mine.
“I’ve had a number of setbacks. I got to a place where I called AFL level regularly on radio and lost it twice so this is my third comeback.”
Webster is the sister of Hawthorn AFLW coach Daniel Webster, who won the 2022 NEAFL premiership coaching Aspley and had two years as the Lions AFLW midfield coach before joining the Hawks.
She also has strong links to recently-departed Brisbane Lions AFLW chief Bree Brock, who is married to ex-Lions assistant-coach Murray Davis, now Matthew Nicks’ senior off-sider with the Adelaide Crows.
“We are a typical Victorian expat family. We joined the many Victorians who moved to Queensland because of the weather,” Webster told AFLQ’s Josie Fielding when recounting the story of her journey in 2022.
She told how she came from rich football history, with her maternal Grandfather playing for Essendon in the 1950s and her paternal Grandfather a legend for the Nar Nar Goon Footy Club. The best and fairest award is named after him to this day.
“We moved to Bracken Ridge and my brothers got involved at Sandgate,” she said. “Daniel then wanted to take the next step and play senior footy at the Zillmere Eagles, so that’s where I first met the Brock sisters,” she said of Bree, a trailblazer for football in Queensland, and her sister Roxy, a long-time key administrative figure at Zillmere.
It was at Zillmere that Jess Webster first played football. “When Bree formed the Zillmere Eagles football side for the first time, Dad was coach. “I played with my brothers at Zillmere but Mum was a bit hesitant about me playing with the boys.”
After graduating from high school, Jess booked her ticket straight to Melbourne to study at Monash University “because I wanted to go straight to the MCG,” she said, dreaming of following in the footsteps of her broadcasting heroes, Bruce McAvaney and Dennis Cometti.
While studying in Melbourne, she would go to the games at the MCG for two years and pay $11 to practice writing up match reports. “I was working so much and not getting anything published, so I came back to Brisbane to do my final year of university,” she said.
Returning to Brisbane, her first published article was a match report on the Zillmere Eagles in the Northside Chronicle, before her life took another unexpected turn.
Her then partner was offered a spot on the roster in Darwin with the Davis-coached Northern Territory Thunder. So she moved with her partner to the NT in January 2010.
Within two weeks she had landed her first reporting gig as a sports reporter at the NT News, where she met legendary indigenous broadcaster Charlie King. “He’s a massive champion for women and women in the media. He gave me an opportunity to do boundary riding at games. I was only 20 years old.”
While in Darwin, Jess worked at the NT News while taking freelance gigs. She co-hosted a show on Territory FM, “Saturday Sports” which was all about footy. At times she worked alongside Charles Croucher, now the national political editor at Channel Nine, and presented “The Boot”, which reviewed the NTFL and NEAFL.
It was a wonderful apprenticeship. In Darwin, inspired by the NT Thunder, she wrote “Gods of Thunder”, which told the story of the formation of the club.
“My book was about what the club represented on and off the field,” she said. “The main objective was to improve the lives of the indigenous people on and off the field. I published it after they won their second flag.”
After five years in the NT she moved home to Brisbane, landing a role at AFL Queensland as the NEAFL Media and Communications Manager following the launch of the competition in 2011.
“I really loved the NEAFL and that role,” she said, grateful that it introduced her to veteran ABC caller Quentin Hull, who is known for his work across all four football codes and has been to many Olympic Games and World Cups.
“I told him I was interested in commentary, and I put something on tape for him and he said to come into the office at the ABC and have a listen,” she said.
In 2015 she started calling games play-by-play.
“I would practice in the NEAFL games and then go into Quentin’s office where he would listen and provide feedback,” she said.
“Meeting Quentin was a massive moment in my life, he really thought I had something, and he believed in me.”
In 2017 she enjoyed another major breakthrough, calling an AFL game on ABC Radio between the Gold Coast and Geelong at Carrara.
“It was something I had always wanted to do as a kid,” she said.
“Playing wasn’t an option for me, so this was the next best thing.”
After continuing to work in both the NEAFL space and freelance for the ABC on weekends, the ever-diligent up-and-comer was enjoying a glass of wine in her apartment when she was struck by what felt like a bolt of lightning. While keeping her job at AFLQ she moved to Melbourne.
“I can’t just expect it to be handed to me,” she thought. “I can’t be here if I want to do play-by-play. I just need to make the move and go.”
Having moved south in the back end of the 2019 AFL season, she started doing boundary riding for the ABC. And in 2020 she had a fortuitous meeting with a Senior Producer at Fox Footy, deciding she would not leave until he knew who she was.
He told her to send him her tape as they were going to need more commentators for the expanding AFLW competition.
“I didn’t hear anything at first, then I received an unexpected call from Fox Footy asking to fill in on the boundary that weekend,” she said.
“I did one game for Fox in 2020 and then next day, the Australian Government declared the pandemic.
“Everything just came crashing down. I woke up on Monday and I’d lost all my commentary work and was facing no job or income. I was also stood down from my role without pay.
“I went from a career high to ‘what’s going on’ – it was so bizarre.”
The NEAFL competition was disbanded in 2020 so Jess’ job was made redundant. The AFL season was also moved to her home state of Queensland, and she only missed out on returning home by a couple of days before the border was tightened.
“I stopped watching footy, I just couldn’t do it,” she said.
“For the first time in my adult life I wasn’t working in footy and first time in my life I couldn’t watch it as it was too devastating. I couldn’t handle being stuck in lockdown with the AFL being moved to Brisbane and I’m stuck in Melbourne.”
Stuck she was … for every day of the 2020-21 lockdown in Melbourne.
In 2021 she did five games with Fox Footy and her first play-by-play AFLW game for the ABC.
She had been offered more work for the men’s 2021 season but with Melbourne bouncing in and out of lockdowns constantly, it was hard to lock in dates.
When ABC offered her first opportunity to call a play-by-play men’s game in Melbourne 2021, she had to turn it down to fulfil the role as bridesmaid for a close friend. But she did call an AFL game minus the crowd for the ABC in 2021, and worked on four games in total.
In 2022 she called the AFLW grand final for the ABC with Hull, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. She’s worked regularly with the ABC and on Triple M before the biggest and best break of her career on Sunday.
Another Queenslander to make good in the AFL, alongside the likes of Harris Andrews and Will Ashcroft, Ally Anderson and Emily Bates.