Jasmin Strange has been Ethan Strange’s number 1 fan for as long as she can remember – long before the packed stadiums and seeing his name in the headlines. As his big sister and NRLW star in her own right, she’s seen every version of him – the hyper kid, the skateboarder with the sweaty upper lip, the footy-obsessed teenager, and the Canberra Raiders player he is today.
When people ask her about Ethan’s NRL career – about how far he’s come and how fast it happened – Jas always comes back to the same thing. “He’s still the same person he was in primary school.” From her perspective, that’s the real achievement. The younger brother she grew up with – the one she’s backed since day one – is still there. And that’s why Jas is Ethan Strange’s number 1 fan.
Growing up on the Central Coast
There are some places that don’t just feel like where you grow up – they feel like the reason you are the way you are. For Ethan and Jas, that place is the Central Coast of New South Wales. “Growing up on the Central Coast was just the best,” Jas says. “I’m forever grateful to my parents for giving Ethan and me the best childhood.”
It was a childhood shaped by plenty of space and opportunity. By parents who believed in saying yes when their kids showed interest in something. “They encouraged us to try absolutely everything,” Jas says. That freedom translated into constant movement – whether it was cricket, tennis, golf, ice skating, motorbikes or even the time when Ethan learned to ride a unicycle.
There was no pressure to lock in one thing early. It was about exploring, learning, failing, trying again – and building confidence along the way. “Living on the Central Coast gave us all those opportunities,” Jas says. “And they’ve definitely helped us.”
Looking back, she can see how those years shaped Ethan – his balance, humility and comfort in himself. His ability to take things seriously without taking himself too seriously. Before there were NRL pathways, there was just a kid growing up in the right place, with the right people around him.
The kid who tried everything
When something caught Ethan’s attention, it consumed him. “He hyper-fixated on things very quickly,” Jas says. “Whatever his idea was, we were all going to be doing it – and he was going to be really, really freakishly good at it.”
She remembers the halfpipe in their shed. “He would skate over and over... and make Mum try and record his tricks,” she says. “And he’d get a really sweaty upper lip because he was doing stuff relentlessly, non-stop.” It drove her mad.
But that was Ethan. If he was in, he was all in. “He would just try anything and everything,” Jas remembers. “He’d make it his mission to be the absolute best at it – no matter what it was.”
The ping pong challenge
Ethan still laughs about one of his Dad’s more creative challenges. “My old man told me he’d give me a hundred dollars if I rocked up to the Year 12 ping pong tryouts in full sweats,” he says. “Tennis sweatbands – around the head, biceps, wrists – everywhere.”
It worked. He made the team. “Then I went and versed a fellow from a Sydney school… and didn’t score a point.” But his Dad still paid him – and added another hundred dollars for sporting the sweatbands again.
There was always laughter and mischief circling the Strange family. But underneath it, something else was forming – discipline disguised as play, resilience dressed as dares, and a kid learning to throw himself into things fully, even when it looked ridiculous.
Sibling chaos at home
The Strange household was rarely quiet. “I used to love Michael Jackson,” Ethan says, thinking back to his childhood. “There’s a video when me and my old man are having a boogie.” Jas was in the room, building a structure. Ethan had a blow-up baseball bat and used it to try and knock down the structure at every chance he could get. “Ethan was just a terror,” Jas laughs. “Dad would turn his eyes for two seconds and he’d run over and try to hit it.”
Years later came the ear-piercing incident. With his 10-year-old consent, “I grabbed him by the ear lobes and pierced his ear with the earring,” Jas says. His mates followed, and Ethan still laughs about it to this day. They were simply two siblings, annoying each other, backing each other, growing up side by side – long before footy became serious.
Where it all started
Growing up, Ethan was into motorbikes, skateboards and surfing. “Then he made this little mate in school who was obsessed [with footy],” Jas recalls. When the little mate asked Ethan to play, he did. Eventually he joined The Entrance Tigers and stayed there during his junior years. Small in size, big in energy, and usually in headgear with what Jas describes as “big chubby cheeks”.
Even back then, there were signs. “He had crazy tackle technique from day dot,” Jas says. “He’d just lift up these five- and six-year-olds and absolutely drop them.” As he grew older, he learned to rely on other skills. “He didn’t have his growth spurt till quite late,” she says. “So, he had to work on his agility, his ball skills and his tackle tech.”
Ethan remembers his footy beginnings on the Central Coast. “[It] was a very rugby league-orientated town,” he says. “Just getting down there... around my mates and around my family... it felt like home.” And subtly, without making a big deal of it, he was becoming the player everyone would soon start noticing.
Signing the first contract
Ethan’s rise felt like a natural extension of growing up in a rugby league town, surrounded by mates, and weekends spent on footy fields. It wasn’t until his mid-teenage years, during the slowed-down stretch of the pandemic, that his future in the NRL became clearer.
“We would just wake up and go surfing every day with all the boys.” In the middle of that routine, footy became the constant – the thing he kept coming back to. “This is when I signed my first NRL contract to come down to Canberra as a development player,” Ethan says. “I think I was still in year 11.”
His manager had sent his highlights video to a recruiter, “Just to say, ‘what do you think of this kid?’” Ethan explains. Suddenly, the possibility became real after a follow-up conversation with Canberra Raiders coach, Ricky Stuart. Ethan formed an instant connection with Ricky. “I loved him and everything he was about,” he says. “It just felt right.”
For Jas, that moment was about pride and trust more than nerves. “We were just super proud of Ethan signing his contract,” she says. “That's all he always wanted from such a young age.” Letting her younger brother move interstate wasn’t easy, but the relationship with Ricky made things easier. “We just felt really safe and trusting,” Jas says. “They offered him a really direct pathway… and Ricky's stuck exactly to that.”
Watching the world catch up
There was never a moment when Jas suddenly realised Ethan was talented. “I’ve always known from under sixes that Ethan had something,” she says. There was, however, one night when it stopped being just her belief, and it started becoming everyone else’s.
It happened during an Under 19s State of Origin match, when Ethan was playing for New South Wales – his first game at centre, and he scored three tries. “That was my first time [seeing] other people see what I’ve always seen,” Jas says. “It was quite special to me.” All those years of hard work had suddenly become visible.
She thinks about all the small moments that led there. Holidays where others switched off and Ethan didn’t. “We go on holiday… and he’s finding a random patch of grass to do Malcolms and shuttles on.” Training sessions squeezed into spare hours, and doing fitness drills without being asked.
Ethan barely remembers the game itself. “It’s all a blur,” he says. “That day just happened to be my day.” To Jas, that response says everything. “Humble,” she says, simply. While the outside world was catching up, Ethan was already focused on the next session, the next improvement, and the next step forward.
Same mates, same mentality
Even as Ethan’s world expanded, very little about him changed. “He still has the same group of mates from kindergarten,” Jas says. They’re the boys he grew up with – the ones who knew him before footy. “They just talk to me like Ethan from primary school,” he says with a grin on his face.
That grounding shows up in small ways. “He doesn’t get overwhelmed by any attention,” Jas says, while realising she also sees it in the way he plays footy. Where others might hesitate, Ethan leans in. “He’s quite fearless,” she says. “You could put him in any jersey on any field anywhere in the world, and his mentality is still the same.” When things get tough, he doesn’t disappear.
Why Jas is Ethan Strange’s number 1 fan
What matters most to Jas is how little NRL success has changed Ethan. He still shows up for the people closest to him – and that includes her. “Any [of my] games he can get to, he gets to,” she says. She remembers seeing him after winning the NRLW Grand Final with the Newcastle Knights. “He was so proud.”
Ethan credits their parents. “They instilled hard work in both of us.”
If footy hadn’t worked out for Ethan, Jas knows where he’d be – putting his barber qualifications to good use by cutting mates’ hair in the garage for ten bucks. Still working, still backing himself, still Ethan. That’s why she’s his number 1 fan. Not because of what he’s achieved – but because of who he’s stayed.
