Inside Daisy Pearce’s ‘difficult’ post-baby AFLW comeback
Three years ago, Daisy Pearce was the newly-minted AFLW’s breakout star. Two seasons later, she gave birth to twins. Now, she’s poised to make her comeback — but the road to her footy return hasn’t been an easy one.
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Daisy Pearce couldn’t even do a sit up.
The dual AFL Women’s All-Australian, the foundation AFLW captain, the 10-time VFLW premiership player.
As for a chin-up, that was out of the question.
After 14 AFLW games with Melbourne and six best and fairest awards for VFLW powerhouse Darebin, Pearce announced on August 31, 2018 that she was pregnant with twins.
“Ben and I made two little humans,” she wrote on Instagram.
“Refer to grey blobs and use your imagination. ETA March 2019.”
Simple. To the point. Very Pearce.
Today, 526 days after that announcement and with Sylvie and Roy just a week shy of their first birthday, Pearce will return to the AFLW field and will captain Melbourne in the Demons’ first clash of the season, against North Melbourne.
It was 10 weeks after Sylvie and Roy came “earthside” that Pearce embarked on her return to fitness.
It wasn’t an “I will get back”. It was an “I hope to get back”.
She couldn’t have been prepared for just how challenging it would become.
“It was like my brain wasn’t connected to my body,” Pearce told the Herald Sun.
“Movements that were seemingly easy and just every day, something you’d do 100 times, felt weak and really difficult to do.
“You had to rebuild all the foundations of your core strength. Then that ties into your agility.
“I couldn’t do a sit-up, couldn’t do a chin-up, couldn’t do any of that for a long, long time.”
That was the biggest challenge. A “good” gym session once meant heavier weights, a lather of sweat.
“It was really difficult to have to just trust the process and just tick off the exercise that you were doing,” she said.
“The focus was more on doing it well and kind of repairing your body rather than pushing it to do it harder and faster, kind of thing.
“That was a challenge mentally for me.”
That was without the small matter of sustaining life for those two “little humans” she had welcomed in February 2019.
Pearce, now 31, had the support of her partner Ben, who stepped away from his job as a firefighter for 12 months in an effort to support the AFLW star in her endeavour to pull the boots on again.
Getting those sessions in sometimes meant a few unconventional methods to keep Sylvie and Roy placated.
“Our physio was great. Kath (Sakadjian, now with the Demons’ men’s team) owns a gym in Rowville, so we could go there and see her as my physio and train in the gym,” Pearce said.
“Sometimes if the kids were asleep, we’d literally drive into the gym so we didn’t have to get them out of the car seats.
“The best session I did in getting back to training was one time where they fell asleep just before we got there.
“We drove in, parked there, I got the entire session done and got treated for physio and left before they woke up. In an airconditioned car in an indoor facility, I must add, so that I don’t get hounded. And in the middle of winter.
“That was awesome having that support.”
Support is a common theme in Pearce’s journey over the last 12 months – even longer.
Her and Ben’s families – especially their mums – formed the “village” that Pearce said has gotten the young family to today.
It hasn’t been easy.
“I feel pretty proud,” the midfielder said.
“None of it’s been easy and downhill.
“A lot of it’s taken a lot of resilience and sacrifice and some things that you really don’t feel like doing at the time.
“Off the back of that experience and now that I’m here in a position to do what I’ve set out to do, it’s added to mental toughness, I guess.
“We have gotten through something really difficult and kept fronting up to the challenges that popped up. Although you feel like giving up at times, I didn’t.
“And though all those things haven’t been perfect, we’re here now and I do feel like I’m in a good position to launch into the season.”
She feels great pride – not just of herself.
“I’m proud of what we’ve been able to do as a little family and a more extended family, too, with the support we’ve got,” she said.
There’s been breastfeeding – which she still does – the twins mid-training session, nights of little to no sleep and thousands of nappies.
There’s been those that said she couldn’t, and nagging doubts – especially after watching on last season as the Demons won four of their seven games to finish fourth in Conference A.
“Oh yeah, (heavy doubts) have been there,” she said of her comeback.
“Whether it was because of where I was at physically while I was pregnant, or afterwards, or just standing at the bottom of the hill you have to climb just to get yourself back there, with no time to do it.
“I thought of it all then, and then you go down to training and early on I remember when we went back, in the first gym session, you start looking over your shoulder to see what everyone else is lifting.
“The competitor in me kind of coming through and you think ‘I’m going alright, I’m sort of at about where most girls are lifting’. And then it dawns on you a few seconds later that they’re just doing all their warm-up sets and they’re about to load up and double what they’ve got on the bar. All of that.”
Pearce said she “always” struggles with pre-season, dubbing herself “not the most pure athlete in AFLW” despite her strong physique.
“It’s probably been heightened because of the preparation I’ve had, but when we’re doing gut running or repeat effort running or gym work or sprints – that’s never my go,” she admits.
“The little voice starts getting a bit louder at that time of year, every year, wondering whether the game’s gone past me. But it definitely happened this year because everyone’s whizzing past me as they do every year, but I’ve got the doubt over my head of whether my body’s going to hold up, whether I’ve got the time, physical or emotional energy to do what I need to, to put myself in a good enough condition.”
But, according to teammate Lauren Pearce, she “worked her arse off” to get back and earn her spot.
She was voted by her peers to return as the team’s captain, as she had done in her two previous seasons of AFLW, but had worried whether she had her teammates’ respect and her ability to have a positive impact given the time restrictions of two babies, but she has readjusted her approach and is proud to be making a meaningful impact “in different ways”.
Her coach Mick Stinear considers the Demons lucky to have her.
“Daisy has, and continues to, inspire this group, and that’s both players and staff who are involved in the program,” he said when she was named skipper.
“That’s by the way she acts on and off the field, but we talk about the ‘Melbourne person’ being hardworking, humble, competitive and resilient and she embodies those qualities.”
If the 31-year-old has learned anything on the “exciting” road to Casey Fields today, it’s that “geez, I really must love my footy” as she hunts “the missing piece” in her career – an AFLW premiership.
“I’ve put me and us through all of this just to get back and play. But also I’ve learned that it’s not everything,” she said.
“It’s a funny mindset now – I do love being there and when I’m there I can easily tip everything I’ve got into it. But then you get home, and you’ve got this great perspective that it isn’t everything.
“You’ve got these other two people to come home to that demand so much of you as well.”
They’ll be there today, Roy on the move now and Sylvie not the biggest fan of the camera as their personalities are revealed more by the day.
Pearce’s eye quickly went to Round 2 when the fixture was released in October, and not for the usual planning.
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“Normally I’m the type of person to nut out how often we travel, how many six day breaks, when do we play this side and that side,” she said.
“This year, the only thing I looked at was to see where our game fell around Sylvie and Roy’s birthday.
“It couldn’t have been better because we play on the Friday night – not only do we not play on their birthday, but footy will be done for the weekend too so I can just go home and dress up as a clown or do something and just be mum. It’ll be good.”