You may not have heard of her yet, but 19-year-old Sabrina is your next AFL hero.

There are boys all over the country who look up to the likes of Buddy Franklin and Gary Ablett. But at a school in Perth, there’s a girl who carries a picture of a different AFL hero around with her, one most Australians haven’t yet heard of: Sabrina Frederick-Traub.

The 182cm 19-year-old, who will star as a marquee player in next year’s inaugural season of the AFL Women’s competition, told Mamamia that she met the young girl while coaching a football clinic at her school.

“She has braids, like me, and she’d get teased for it. So after watching my first exhibition match, she brought a photo in of me and said to the kid that was bullying her, ‘I want to be just like this girl when I grow up. See, braids are cool, because she’s wearing them out on the field’.

“If I can tap into just one person’s life and help them, then that’s great.”

Come next February, there will be plenty more kids with pictures of Sabrina on their walls. The British-born sportswoman is one of the first women to pull on a Brisbane Lions jersey, having been picked as one of the club’s two marquee players for 2017.

It’s a day Sabrina never thought would come.

“Before I moved to Australia I didn’t realise that there were sports that women couldn’t do. But then I came here and got told that you can’t excel at AFL at that level, and it was a bit heartbreaking,” she said.

“So when they made the announcement [about the league], it was really exciting, because that’s what you want across the board – equality.”

But she’s not just excited because she gets to lace up her boots and play in front of an audience of millions (recent female exhibition matches routinely out-rated the men’s games), but because of what it means for the next generation of young girls.

“I’m only 19 now, so I’m not really thinking about having kids right now, but the thought that if I have a daughter, she can play the sport if she wants to, that’s just really exciting,” she said.

Today the game changes. 8 licenses were given. Every little girl now can have a chance to play this great game . History has been made. #journeyto2017 #womensAFL

A photo posted by Sabrina Frederick -Traub (@sabzizzle) on Jun 14, 2016 at 7:36pm PDT

Sabrina’s own introduction to AFL was more out of necessity than passion. Having moved to Australia from England at the age of six, she had started a new school, with new people, who played a strange new sport with religious fervour every single recess and lunch.

“It was pretty much that I had to join in and make friends, or I’d be sitting on the sidelines just watching the other kids,” she said.

“When I joined in I actually really loved it.”

From those schoolyard games, Sabrina’s PE teacher noticed something special and asked her to try out for a school team, which up until then had been strictly boys-only.

“Basically every team that we came up against, there would always be parents and kids from the other teams saying things, talking, whispering, until they actually saw me play,” she laughs. “Then it was a different story.”

Sabrina playing for the Melbourne Deamons during a 2015 exhibition match. Images: Getty.

As so often seems to be the case with elite female athletes, Sabrina is equally skilled at another sport: soccer. As a British kid, she'd been playing the sport ever since she could run and just last year was offered a soccer scholarship by an American university. But ultimately AFL won out.

"Deep down I knew that it was the sport I had chosen to play," she said. "Not that I didn't enjoy soccer, but you're pretty much brought up to play it in England. But over here, none of my family played AFL - it was my own choice, it was something different.

"Also the culture of footy is so family oriented, and that was something that really appealed to me as well."

It proved to be a wise decision. In the eight weeks since she offered the spot at the Lions, she's put her university studies on hold, she and her partner have moved across the country and she's started a new job as the club's participation officer.

"It's changed my life completely," she said. "I pretty much dropped everything in Perth and just went for it, because it's a dream of mine to be playing this sport, and I didn't want to regret anything."

On to the next chapter ! Thankyou to everyone who has supported me on and off the field to get me to this point.To my teamates, we didn't get the win we may have wanted today but it has been a crazy and best 2 years being a south freo bulldog couldn't be more proud . To my family my biggest supporters...mum and dad without you driving me to every training (before i could drive) , funding state trips and making sure i followed my dreams i wouldn't be where i am today. And lastly to my lady, thankyou for being my rock , supporting my dream and moving with me to keep me in line ???? Every person who i have come across has shaped me to the person i am today , Thank you.

A photo posted by Sabrina Frederick -Traub (@sabzizzle) on Aug 14, 2016 at 2:52am PDT

One day, the League will also change the lives of the young girls she works with in her role as an AFL multi-cultural ambassador (her father is of Jamaican and Antiguan heritage) .

"When you go out to schools and run clinics, these girls have no idea what's ahead of them," she said. "Hopefully by the time they're my age it will be a sport they can do as a full-time career.

"I'm more excited for them than I am for me, because it's awesome to know that you can do whatever you want when you grow up."

While attitudes to women's sport are undeniably shifting, Sabrina recognises that there will always be people who will refuse to watch women play.

"I don't know if that's because people are too scared to turn on the TV and realise that we're actually good," she said. "But the people that don't want to watch it, or won't watch it, are definitely missing out. That's all I can say - they're missing out."

Sabrina is nominated for the Emerging Leader award at Thursday night's Liptember Grand Final Comedy Debate. Tickets are available here.

Feature image via Getty.