Her father was in the charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba in 1917, a feat of bravery that inspired two movies. Speaking of bravery, it was notable that in the vital opening exchanges of the Bulldogs' preliminary final against Greater Western Sydney, Ann's grandson Jordan Roughead was not intimidated by the most terrifying player in the AFL, GWS ruckman Shane "Big Mummy" Mumford. When I put this to Ann, she agrees. "He didn't flinch. He did it well".

Jordan and his cousin, Hawthorn's Jarryd Roughead, have now won five AFL premiership medals between them. The cousins had a wrestle the first time they met in an AFL match. Afterwards, Jarryd texted Jordan, "I don't think our Nan would have liked us dancing on the sidelines." Jordan, when asked about the incident by the press, said, "I forgot to give him an Easter egg this year".

Ann Roughead says that what Jordan and Jarryd share is an "evenness" of temperament. "They get their athleticism from the Rougheads," she says. "But I claim their temperaments."

She had seven children and was the strong one in their upbringing – not much money, husband unwell, working four days a week at the local tech as a teacher and a librarian, driving the kids each weekend to every one of their sporting engagements. Paul Roughead says of his mother, "She was Superwoman". They lived in a small farmhouse. She was good with animals; a kangaroo she raised kept coming back to see her.

She tells me she is "not one to argue". "I just don't like giving up," she says, an especially bright light in her eyes. She grew up in Trafalgar in the La Trobe valley. Her father, the Light Horseman home from World War I, was a road contractor who became a union organiser. When she was seven, her father started taking her to the local football, always buying her a meat pie. Of football, she says, "When you start going early you just get a love for it."

In 1949, she went to teachers' college and became friendly with Dulcie Dalbosco, who was to marry Hawthorn legend John Kennedy. I ask for her first memory of Kennedy. "I just remember everyone respected him tremendously." She and Dulcie Kennedy are still friends.

Her first teaching appointment was to Leongatha in the green hills of Gippsland. The Rougheads, originally from Edinburgh in Scotland, came to Leongatha after failing to find gold in Bendigo, walking a large part of the way. Ann met Jim Roughead, the son of a local farmer. Jim played in Leongatha's 1951 premiership team. "That's a good memory," she says. They married the following year.

Each weekend, she drove her seven kids wherever they had to go in an old Holden station wagon, "a couple in the back". She accommodated all their sports – cricket, golf, netball, shot putt – driving as far as Footscray to enable her sons to play football. Paul Roughead – Jordan's father – says that, without Ann, he and his brothers wouldn't have been able to play football, and their sons might not have inherited the passion to play in the AFL.

Ann watched the 2016 AFL grand final with Maggie Wallis, grandmother of injured Bulldog Mitch Wallis. Maggie lives next door. They had party pies and sausage rolls at half-time and a glass of champagne when the Bulldogs won.

Jordan nearly missed the grand final after a ball kicked into his face during the preliminary final caused bleeding inside one eye. "I was so pleased he played," says his grandmother, now 86. "It was a real exhilarating moment for everyone." We both marvel at what a wonderful game it was, and she calls the result "a blessing, a real blessing". I end up telling her stories about my mother and we laugh a lot.

Paul Roughead told me that some years ago he and his siblings framed a Leunig cartoon and gave it to their mother. The cartoon – Leunig at his best – is called "The Coach's Wife", a play on "The Drover's Wife", Henry Lawson's great short story about female isolation in the Australian bush during the 1890s.

Leunig's cartoon is set in the post-war years – the 1950s or early 1960s. I remember, as a child, seeing the scene it depicts – all the local football team's jumpers washed by one woman and hung up on her line. After I've met his mother, I ring Paul and say I only have one problem with the cartoon. The woman in it looks worn-out. "Your mother has such a lively personality." He replies, "My mother is a much younger woman now than she was at 36."

Jarryd Roughead missed the 2016 season after it was announced that he had cancerous spots on his lungs. I raised this with Ann. Her manner – modest, bright, strong – didn't falter. She says of her own nature that she has enough Irish in her to be stubborn. "It's just about getting through this year. We say the prayers and he's got the attitude."