Immersing herself in the world of Australian Rules football, Shelley forgets her grief and finds a place to belong in the face of hostility from girls at her new school. Her only true friend is Josh, with whom she used to play in a junior team before losing a plea to the competition tribunal to be permitted to continue.

The narrative is imbued with sadness that ‘girls aren’t allowed to play in any real games’. The only role available to them is to ‘hang around to watch the players’; to be the ‘dull backdrop to their stunning lives’. The only game available to them is sexual – their goal lies in gaining the attention of these desirable, other-worldly men.

Shelley’s first meeting with her favourite player, the soulful Mick Edwards, is described as akin to religious experience: ‘Eddie smiles at me – right into me – like he’s known me for years … I’m in heaven. I never want to leave.’ Descriptions of the footballers are sensual, their bodies ‘steaming in the still air … slick and smooth, gliding’. In Shelley, ‘heat and pleasure battle with dread’ in the liaison she is being drawn into.

Hayes clearly has a deep understanding of football, and autobiographical elements are revealed in the acknowledgments, where parallels are drawn between herself and Shelley. Each chapter is titled after a stage of the game or season; they build to a climax for the team, and for Shelley, on the day of the grand final. This gripping novel will be enjoyed by those with a passion for football and by anyone who has loved, and lost.