Stephanie Chiocci (; born 6 December 1988) 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). She has served as Collingwood captain since the competition's inaugural season in 2017, and has served as co-captain alongside

Brianna Davey Brianna Iris Davey (born 13 January 1995) is an Australian footballer in both the Association football (soccer) and Australian rules football codes. In soccer, she was a goalkeeper for the national women's team the Matildas and played in the ...

since the 2021 season.

Early life

Chiocci grew up in

Eltham Eltham ( ) is a district of South London, southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east-southeast of Charing Cross, and is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. The thre ...

, a suburb in Melbourne's north-east, and is of Italian descent. She attended high school at

Catholic Ladies' College The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in Eltham.

Early football career

State league career

Chiocci played state league football for Diamond Creek in the

Victorian Women's Football League The Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) was the oldest and largest Australian rules football league for women in the world, consisting of 47 clubs from Victoria, Australia, across seven divisions and a total of over 1,000 players. The ...

(VWFL) and

VFL Women's 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 ...

(VFLW) from 2006 to 2017. She was a member of the Creekers North East division premiership team in 2006 and won the club's

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

award that same season. That season, she also received the leagues' best first year player award. She repeated the result in 2012, with a second premiership and second club best and fairest. She kicked three goals in the winning grand final. Chiocci placed second in the league's best and fairest award at the conclusion of the 2009 season. She captained the club from 2014 to 2017.

Representative football

Chiocci is a three-time senior All-Australian, winning the honours in consecutive

AFL Women's National Championship The AFL Women's National Championship was the premier national and international competition in Women's Australian rules football. The championship was held every year between 1992 and 2015. The tournament was organised by the sport's governing ...

s in 2009, 2011 and 2013. In 2010, Chiocci was one of forty players to participate in the women's AFL high-performance camp. As part of the program, she played in a curtain-raiser exhibition match ahead of the round 12, 2010 AFL match between and . Chiocci was selected by the with the club's first selection and number two overall in the 2013 women's AFL exhibition game draft. She later played in the first women's exhibition match in June 2013. She was retained by the club and played in exhibition matches in each year through to the end of 2016. She captained the side in 2015 and 2016 including in the women's all-star match in September 2016. Chiocci participated in AFL Victoria's female academy in 2015 and 2016, a program intending to lift the performances of some of the state's best female footballers.

AFL Women's career

Chiocci was drafted by with the club's second selection and eleventh overall in the

2016 AFL Women's draft The 2016 AFL Women's draft consisted of the various periods when the eight clubs in the AFL Women's competition recruited players prior to the competition's inaugural season in 2017. Draftees and signings over the period were required to have ...

. She was named the club's inaugural AFL Women's captain in January 2017. Chiocci played in all seven games of the 2017 season. In May 2017, Collingwood signed her for the 2018 season. She played in the first five matches of the season, before she was suspended for making forceful head-high contact with defender Libby Birch in round 5. She was suspended for two matches, ending her season after playing five matches. In May 2018, Chiocci was re-signed by Collingwood for the 2019 season. Collingwood signed Chiocci for the 2020 season during the trade and sign period in April 2019. In December 2020, it was announced that Chiocci would captain Collingwood for a fifth consecutive season in 2021, and that vice-captain and former captain

would join her as co-captain. After playing in the opening round of the 2022 season, Chiocci was a late withdrawal from Collingwood's win over with an Achilles injury, before returning in round 4 against . She was left out again in round 6 to manage the same injury, before returning in round 8 against the Western Bulldogs.

Statistics

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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 ...

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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 ...

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2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeyp ...

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Personal life

Off-field, Chiocci works as a teacher at Parkdale Secondary College in Melbourne's south-east.

Honours and achievements

* Collingwood captain: 2017–present (co-captain 2021–present) * Victoria representative honours in AFL Women's State of Origin: 2017

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chiocci, Steph Living people 1988 births Collingwood Football Club (AFLW) players Australian rules footballers from Melbourne Sportswomen from Victoria (Australia) Australian schoolteachers Victorian Women's Football League players People from Eltham, Victoria Australian people of Italian descent People from Carlton, Victoria