AFLW news: Giants star Chloe Dalton reveals all she wants to do is play footy again

From a lost footy season to postponed Olympic Games and then a fractured cheekbone, gold medallist and Giants star Chloe Dalton explains why she had no hesitation getting the Covid vaccination.

The last time I played a game of AFLW was in front of a crowd-less Ikon Park.

It was the 2020 season and I had experienced a convincing win over the Brisbane Lions with my Carlton teammates.

We walked into the change rooms to rumours that the entire AFLW season was to be cancelled.

I drove home in a bit of a rush. Walking in the door, I turned on the television to see Gillon McLachlan announcing the 2020 AFLW season had been cancelled.

Within 72 hours, I received a text from a friend, a screenshot of a tweet, announcing the postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games.

I felt numb. Two huge goals that I had been working towards for years, suddenly cancelled.

I also felt incredibly scared. I had quit my job as a physiotherapist to pursue a career as a professional athlete and now faced unemployment in both careers.

Chloe Dalton during her stint with Carlton, which came to an abrupt ending when the 2020 season was cancelled because of Covid.

I packed up my room in Melbourne as quickly as I could and drove home to NSW to be with my family.

In 2020, I had set the ambitious goal of lifting a premiership cup and winning an Olympic Gold medal. Both dreams were on hold.

I made the decision to miss the 2021 AFLW season and concentrate on making the squad to compete at the Tokyo Olympics in the Rugby Sevens.

I rejoined the Australian Sevens program full-time in Sydney but four weeks out from the Games my run of bad luck continued.

We played a tournament against New Zealand, Fiji and Oceania in Townsville and during a game against Oceania, my teammate and I tackled the same person from different directions.

As soon as I lay back on the ground, I knew something wasn’t right.

I could see my swollen cheek out of the corner of my eye and when the medical staff sat me upright, blood started dripping from my nose.

I was immediately taken to hospital and scans revealed I had fractured my cheekbone in four places. I would need surgery to have three plates screwed into my face.

As soon as the tackle happened, my gut feeling was that my dream of winning a second Olympic gold medal was over.

As my coach John Manenti walked into the hospital room, I could sense what was coming. He had spoken with medical staff, and there wasn’t enough time for me to recover before the Olympics.

There it was again, the numbness. Hours and hours of training, hundreds of tackles, repetitions in the gym — was it all for nothing, again?

Dalton is now with the Giants as she counts down the days to the new season.

Dalton’s gold medal defence fell apart when she fractured her cheekbone.

In time I turned my attention back to footy. I had previously requested a trade from Carlton to Greater Western Sydney so that I could be with family and friends, as well as pursuing my two sporting loves — AFLW and Rugby Sevens.

Both clubs agreed to the trade ahead of the 2022 season.

In 2021, the Giants were the team most impacted by coronavirus border closures.

Since joining the team, I have spoken to Giants Head of Women’s Football Briana Harvey to understand what they had to endure.

It started in late December 2020 when the Giants players and staff were told they would have to move out of NSW because of a worsening Covid-19 outbreak.

The group spent New Year’s Day driving to Albury on the NSW border to complete an isolated training block before being allowed across state lines.

The next step was to fly to Adelaide for a practice match but there were no direct flights out of Albury so, suddenly, Briana was faced with the task of getting 50 people and 700kg of equipment to Canberra airport — without a logistics van.

So, she hired removalists and the team, and their gear, arrived in Canberra on a Friday night ready for a flight to South Australia to play a practice match against the Crows on the Sunday.

Things continued to go wrong. There was delay after delay at the airport until the flight was cancelled altogether.

The players were exhausted, physically and emotionally, and in a state of disbelief that the situation could keep getting worse.

Club captain Alicia Eva told me that players had to find a quiet corner of the airport to let out their emotions — the tears and the frustration.

Briana was also faced with a new challenge: a cancelled flight, no accommodation booked, and too much gear to store.

She hired a security guard to watch the gear overnight at the airport, and booked the team in for a broken sleep at a nearby airport hotel.

Dalton scores a try in the women’s Rugby Sevens semi-final match between Australia and Canada during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

They finally made it to Adelaide but soon after arriving Giants coach Alan McConnell hit the top of his head on a metal divider while unloading their gear from a hire van.

The cut was deep enough to require stitches so assistant coach Roger Moten called on his brother, a doctor, to come and suture Alan’s head.

It must have seemed like a miracle when the practice match started as planned.

That is, until the final 30 seconds of the last quarter when Irish import Bríd Stack fractured her neck when tackled by Crows midfielder Ebony Marinoff.

Stack was further from home than any of her teammates and had copped a serious injury in her debut game of Aussie Rules.

She donned a neck brace and decided to continue travelling with her team. Despite the setback, Stack and her partner Cárthach Keane had an extended family of 50 to help look after their toddler Cárthach Óg.

The Giants players and staff often reflect on the challenges faced last season, and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about my new teammates — regardless of what happens, they’re a resilient bunch and will deal with whatever is thrown at them.

Heading into 2022, the new Omicron variant presents plenty of new challenges that may impact the upcoming AFLW season.

Already, we had a practice match cancelled last Saturday in Adelaide because of a positive in our team and concerns about getting in and out of South Australia before Christmas.

I received my two doses of the vaccine earlier this year, firstly to protect the people around me, and secondly, because it allows me to do my job, playing footy across the country.

All 30 of my teammates have done the same.

The five AFLW teams across Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland reside in states with some of the strictest border control measures.

Vaccinations may allow the competition to go ahead, without the need for teams to train in strict bubbles, or to quarantine when travelling across borders.

A competition still in its infancy, needs every chance to continue without the risk of games being cancelled or competition suspended.

After the year we have had, all we want to do is play footy.

* Chloe Dalton is a Giants player and works part-time for Giants media.