Cats midfielder receives annual scholarship

GEELONG Cats VFLW midfielder Abby Favell has been named as this year’s recipient of the den Hollander Geelong Cats VFLW Scholarship through the club’s partnership with Deakin University.

The club announced Favell’s award following a tremendous first season in the hoops in 2023 after coming to the Cats from the Hawthorn VFLW and Murray Bushrangers program.

“I was very happy; I was honoured, honestly, it was quite a shock,” Favell said.

“It is going to help me a lot with my studies going forward and being able to play football and do everything that I want to do.

“It just takes a bit of the pressure off with the rest of my activities.”

The scholarship aims to make studying easier for players trying to balance their workloads on and off the football field.

Favell is now entering the fourth year of her Occupational Therapy course and is adamant she wants to pursue it as a career.

“I definitely think it’s what I want to do,” she said.

“It’s lots of placements and lots of hard units, but I think in the end it will be worth it.

“It’s a very broad field, so I’m sure that I’ll have a job waiting for me for the rest of my life, which is really exciting.

“It’s a degree that offers you lots of opportunities.”

The scholarship is awarded annually through the generosity of Jane and Jeroen den Hollander to an emerging player within the Geelong VFLW program who is also a student at Deakin University.

Ms den Hollander was vice-chancellor at Deakin from 2010 to 2019 and is a strong believer in the power of education to change the lives of individuals and communities.

The den Hollanders continue to be strong advocates for gender equity in sport.

Past scholarship recipients include present Cats AFLW stars Nina Morrison and Becky Webster.