Four years into a booming football career, West Coast superstar Ella Roberts remains an AFLW "fan girl" who still has to hide her excitement when she lines up next to opponents she idolises.

One of the biggest stars in the League and the poster girl for a young and exciting West Coast team that has lit up the NAB AFLW this season, it is not long ago that Roberts was a fan in the stands idolising AFLW champion Erin Phillips and dreaming of playing on the game's best.  

Her rise over the past two seasons has been thrilling, but the humble and competitive 20-year-old has maintained the super-fan within and is still taken aback when past and present champions recognise what she is now doing as a player.

"In my first two years, I was the biggest fan girl, and I would come up against opposition players and be like, 'Oh my God, I'm playing on so-and-so," Roberts told AFL.com.au this week ahead of the Eagles' historic first AFLW final. 

"Now it is funny to think that possibly people could be thinking that about me.

"But I'm definitely still a fan girl deep down, I just feel like I've got better at hiding it and not letting the opposition know that that's how I'm feeling."

A footy nerd who loves watching games whenever she has free time, Roberts now shares the stage with the stars of the competition she admires most, like Jasmine Garner and Ebony Marinoff.  

The charismatic star is the player fans can't get enough of after games as they chase autographs and selfies, and she has been in demand for marketing, sponsorship and media opportunities in a big week for the Eagles.

The Margaret River product has found her own way to ride the demands of a short but intense AFLW season, ensuring she is all-in on football but still able to maintain a fun approach to the game.

She'll keep the mood light during the week by pranking teammates with a scare cam, but will also take care of the smallest details, like packing a spare pair of contact lenses for game-day emergencies. 

"I find that when I am playing football, I want to be all 100 per cent in, and I don't like to have too many distractions, whether that be study or anything like that," Roberts said.

"If I'm focused on something, I focus purely on that, and then in the off-season that focus will probably change.

"But at the end of the day, I'm playing footy with my best mates in the world, so I feel like it's very hard not to have fun.

"As much as I do like to be locked in when it's training time, I think it's really important to have good culture and create those relationships with your teammates that are also friendships as well."

While Roberts' rise to the top tier in the AFLW has happened quickly over the past two seasons, her talent has been well known in WA football circles since she arrived at WAFLW club Peel Thunder almost six years ago.   

A smart and skilful young forward, she only needed to play three under-18s games before earning promotion to the senior team, playing in back-to-back flags while she was still in high school.

"She starred in our first premiership win, kicking two goals from outside 40m, and she still hadn’t turned 16," Peel Thunder WAFLW coordinator Rachael Hayes said.

A hard worker who was "humble in everything she did", Roberts won the Thunder's rising star award and finished third in the best and fairest in her first season, putting her on the fast-track to an AFLW career.

Player manager and inaugural Greater Western Sydney AFLW player Alex Saundry first met Roberts in 2022 as every club in the competition was working to gain access to her at that year's AFLW Draft.

Roberts would have been the No.1 pick in an open draft, but her decision to nominate Western Australia in the state-based pool meant West Coast was able to secure her with pick No.14.  

Saundry, who manages a group of Eagles stars, said Roberts had since become a key part of the strong culture building under coach Daisy Pearce, with her fun nature and love of a prank making her a popular teammate.

"She's got a great outlook and a really fun, loving way of doing life. And at the same time, she's able to put her head down and she's so, so unbelievably competitive," Saundry said.

"It's definitely something that gives her the ability to drive and be one of the best in the competition at such a young age."

Saundry paid tribute to the role Pearce had played with Roberts and the broader team, as well as the ability of football manager Michelle Cowan and list manager Jordan Loxley to keep a young and talented group together through some difficult seasons.

Roberts played in four wins across her first two seasons but extended her contract to the end of 2027, with the young star determined at that point to help lead the Eagles into a new era.

"She's a really competitive young girl, and those first two seasons were tough. She expected more, she wanted more, and she was driven to make sure that she was going to be part of what that more looked like," Saundry said.

"Ella really bought into the vision and the young core group that West Coast have brought together, and they’re now seeing the fruits of staying together and sticking together through the tough times."

Those first two seasons before Pearce's arrival are a period that Roberts said she had been reflecting on recently as the young and enthusiastic Eagles prepare for the biggest AFLW game of their seven-season history.

"Looking back now, I think in the moment you don't really realise how much it kind of sucks, if that makes sense," Roberts said of her first two seasons, which saw the Eagles finish 16th and 17th.

"Now that I've experienced winning, the more you win, I feel like it's an addictive feeling. So I obviously just want to do it more and more.

"I'm a very emotional person, so when we lose, I feel the losses and it really hurts me to my core. I just want to win."

Roberts has played a bigger role than any player in the Eagles' breakout 2025 season, averaging 23.3 disposals, 4.0 marks, 6.9 tackles, 3.9 clearances and 4.9 score involvements – all team highs.

She has played roughly 70 per cent of games in the midfield and then rotated forward, showing an ability to rip games away from opposition teams with unstoppable bursts of football.

Her first quarter of the season was one of her best, winning 11 disposals and kicking two goals against Gold Coast to announce that she was ready to go to another level.

Midfield coach Baker Denneman said the elevation in Roberts' game this season had come off the back of a committed preseason and a determination to get fitter.

It's allowed her to play in the midfield for longer, and have a more consistent presence in games, rather than impacting in short bursts.

"We've always known that she's been a highly talented footballer, but her ability to combine that with being a professional athlete and putting real time and effort into her craft has seen her game go to another level," Denneman said.

"We've definitely seen her ability around the ball this year has been a driving force. But the luxury is that when she goes forward, she still has the ability to cover the ground now and get really high and become influential in at the contest.

"We're trying to give her more autonomy when she is playing that role so she can do it with a bit of a free spirit and come up when she feels she needs to get into the game."

The way Roberts has evolved as a player has plenty of similarities to her idol Phillips, who was the leading clearance player in the AFLW in her two MVP seasons (2017 and 2019) while also pushing forward as a goalkicker.

Roberts recalls the impact the Adelaide and Port Adelaide champion made on her as a fan, both during her prime as a player and more recently since her retirement.

"I went to a Crows game one time, and it was just so cool to see her. I was taking photos of her and being a bit of a creep, but I was obsessed," Roberts said.

"Then last year I met her when she came to West Coast and was getting a bit of a tour. I just remember her saying, 'Congrats on a good season mate' and I nearly died, it was the best moment ever.

"I couldn't believe she knew who I was to be honest with you, so it was very cool and to be recognised by the GOAT was pretty special."