AFLW 2023: Daisy Pearce retirement after leading Demons to first premiership win
The Daisy Pearce medal has a ring to it, but there have been multiple suggestions on how the AFL can pay tribute to the AFLW star. What gets your vote?
Women’s football pioneer Susan Alberti has hailed Daisy Pearce as a “true champion” and suggested the retiring Melbourne star’s legacy should be recognised with the AFLW best-and-fairest award named in her honour.
Pearce was lauded as a trailblazer for the women’s game and as an inspiration for the next generation of AFLW hopefuls after announcing her retirement in front of her family and teammates at the MCG on Wednesday.
As one of the main faces of the game since the league’s inception, Alberti said Pearce had shown “incredible leadership” on and off the field for her fellow AFLW players and aspiring players.
“Daisy is truly one of a kind,” Alberti, a long-time passionate supporter of the women’s game, said.
“She is not only a trailblazer for women in AFLW but a truly good and caring person.
“She always finds time to talk to young girls and women and encourages them to follow their dream.
“I have loved watching Daisy play women’s football over the years - (she is a) true champion.
“My warmest thanks to Daisy for her incredible leadership.”
Asked how Pearce’s impact on the game should be acknowledged, Alberti suggested naming the league MVP in her honour would be a good start.
“I believe that is for the AFL to determine,” Alberti said.
“Personally, (I think) yes. (She’s a) great woman. Perhaps (the league) B and F?”
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan said the women’s game was indebted to Pearce for her role in helping build and promote the AFLW.
“Incredibly skilful and with a brilliant ability to read the game, she was one of the standout players from day one but, beyond her football skills, she has also carried an enormous load in promoting the game and the competition before its inception,” McLachlan said.
“Football owes Daisy an enormous debt for her willingness to always step up for women’s football, and she has been one of the key faces in building the AFLW competition as THE inspiration for thousands of young girls to pursue their dream of playing football.
“When Daisy was growing up in country Victoria, there was no elite competition to aim for beyond her teen years, but she was one of the many pioneers who constantly lobbied, pushed and drove for the proper respect and support to be given to the women’s game, and the 18-team competition that now exists.
“Away from the field, she has expanded the opportunities now available to women with her outstanding critical analysis of the game in the media, and will no doubt be in demand as well as a coach and mentor for the next generation of young stars, both male and female.”
AFL Players’ Association boss Paul Marsh described Pearce as one of the “great leaders in our game”.
“(She) made a huge contribution to getting AFLW on the path to professionalism and her impact on helping (the AFLPA) represent AFLW players has been profound,” Marsh wrote on Twitter.
Collingwood star Mason Cox described Pearce as “all class”.
“Can’t wait for her to continue to be a force in the media helping give her insight on the game,” Cox wrote on Twitter.
“She has been such a great role model for AFLW and women’s sport and will continue to be in the media I’m sure for years to come”.
DAISY’S INSPIRING JOURNEY
Lauren Wood
They were “Bright’s Blue Boys … and Daisy”.
The junior football banner of two decades earlier seems a lifetime ago — and then some — for a little girl who thought playing football was left in her pre-teens.
On Wednesday, as one of the women’s game’s most decorated players, Pearce announced her call overlooking the famed MCG.
It was a world away from Bright’s Coronation Ave playing fields.
There’d been plenty of phone calls in recent weeks, to family members, teammates and friends to reveal her decision.
Announcing her retirement from playing in front of cameras and it becoming official on Wednesday brought a solitary tear on her right cheek — then a flood.
A qualified midwife, Roy and Sylvie’s mum, Ben’s partner, Channel 7 commentator, soon-to-be Geelong assistant coach.
Football, despite once feeling destined to life in the stands, has been there through it all.
There were 10 VWFL/VFLW premierships and seven VWFL/VFLW best and fairests for Pearce before the inception of AFLW.
Then, three All-Australian guernseys — one as captain — four best captain awards and the holy grail of a premiership in November.
The reigning flag-winning captain said watching the emergence and now cementing of an elite competition — and seeing junior girls in their playing gear at supermarkets on the weekends — and its standing is “probably the most rewarding thing of my whole career”.
“I look at (teammate) Tahlia Gillard and think ‘gee I’m envious of these 18-year-olds who are starting now and get to enjoy 15 years from this point. I get a bit green with that and wish that that’d been me — what could I have done?,” Pearce said.
“But that’s quickly replaced with just feeling so grateful and lucky to have lived across both. That’s been unique and rewarding in itself.
“To have been the 13-year-old who thought I’d played my last game of footy because there was just no opportunities for women — not just playing the game, but in the industry.
“I didn’t think I’d touch football again, other than as a supporter. To be that kid and now to be winding up an AFLW career that’s been just so fulfilling and to have ongoing opportunities in the game … all of that’s not lost on me with how far the game’s come.
“It’s just been awesome, and I’m mindful not to take any credit for that. I’m just so thankful for all the pioneers that I’ve been able to get in behind and grateful that this has happened in my lifetime.”
Pearce’s many worlds have collided in recent years. They’ve had to. Trips back and forth to Porepunkah, then being based in Melbourne to fulfil her and her family’s many and varied commitments.
The logistics, she laughed, have been something to behold.
Roy and Sylvie — a fixture in the club — were front and square at the ‘G as mum called time, Roy giving a wave and ‘hi Mum’ midway through the press conference.
“Hi, bud,” she waved back.
It was indicative of the “whole self” Pearce said she had been able to bring to Melbourne. Having the twins at training was one thing — embracing her own inner kid another.
“One of the things I’m going to grieve the most is I’m a soon-to-be-35-year-old mother-of-two, and I can go there and carry on like an 18 year old,” she laughed.
“That outlet is something I’m really going to miss.
These people, I’ve been through breakups, I’ve been through pregnancies, I’ve been through parenting, I’ve been through losing grand finals. And that’s just my side of things.”
Now 34, Pearce’s legacy in AFL Women’s and the wider football community shouldn’t be underestimated.
It won’t be.
It will, according to her now-former coach, be preserved at Melbourne and beyond.
“I know she’ll have a continued impact on our program and our club and how we go about things,” Mick Stinear said.
“Daisy’s approach of hard work — always looking to raise the bar, but blended in with this selflessness, it’s quite rare.
“Those behaviours and character traits will live on through our players and leaders in how we aspire to go about our business.”
To name a medal, a cup in Daisy’s honour?
These things can often be rushed.
But it seems fitting that a Pearce Medal or variation thereof be a part of AFLW’s future.
“That’ll be out of my hands and beyond our control, but more important is the impact that Daisy’s had on our people that will carry on,” Stinear said.
“The next generation of players to come through, I’m sure the club will make sure they’re fully aware of Daisy’s impact and commitment to the club and how she went about her business.”
FLAG WIN ALMOST MADE DAISY STAY
An unprecedented sense of contentment sealed Daisy Pearce’s retirement decision, the AFL Women’s pioneer and premiership captain said as she announced her emotional call on Wednesday.
It was with “a full heart” and her family and teammates in tow at the MCG that Pearce, 34, confirmed the Demons’ recent flag-winning season would be her last after 55 games and three All-Australian nods, calling time on a career as one of the key faces of the women’s game.
It wasn’t easy.
“I think there was a bit of an assumption that it was win (the premiership) and I’m done or lose it and I might have to consider going again,” Pearce said.
“But in fact, the satisfaction of last season — the enjoyment and the closeness of the bonds that we’ve now formed — it actually made it a bit more confusing and harder to step away.
“It’s probably been one of the harder decisions that I’ve ever had to make.”
“I feel like it’s the right decision. It mostly came down to the fact that I just had this feeling of contentness inside me, which is a new feeling to me as a football player.
“Content has never been something that I’ve felt.
“No matter what’s happened over the journey, content has never been something that I have felt, so as the weeks ticked by post-season, whilst there were definitely spurs of thinking about going back-to-back ... there was also an element of overall satisfaction.”
A pioneer. A premiership captain. A legacy unmatched. ✨
— Melbourne AFLW (@MelbourneAFLW) January 17, 2023
Daisy Pearce has called time on her AFLW playing career after 55 games, six seasons + an unrivalled impact on the game. â¤ï¸
📠| https://t.co/5qwYJhW5chpic.twitter.com/j0f4szr6je
Daisy Pearce changed the game.
— Dan Andrews (@DanielAndrewsMP) January 18, 2023
And not just as a pioneer of AFLW.
Across two leagues she won 11 Premierships, and a haul of Best and Fairest awards.
Not a good player - an incredible player. pic.twitter.com/xWDY3dtfid
“Closing the chapter on my playing career with a very full heart."
— AFL Women's (@aflwomens) January 17, 2023
Daisy Pearce has announced her retirement from football â¤ï¸
Watch LIVE: https://t.co/3lbntHNB4b#AFLWpic.twitter.com/DFnL0lTbMX
The four-time AFLPA best captain winner said there was a recognition of whether she would be able to give as much as she would like as Melbourne endeavours to defend its premiership later this year.
Her career also encompassed a twin pregnancy and the birth of Roy and Sylvie, in 2019, with the twins at the MCG for their mum’s announcement and tears.
Pearce’s VFLW/VWFL career at Darebin that preceded the creation of the AFLW competition included 10 premierships and six league best and fairest medals.
The star Demon set herself a deadline on a recent family trip to Port Douglas to make a decision on whether to close her playing chapter — one she laughed she missed before making the final call around a fortnight ago.
She is set to join the men’s coaching panel at Geelong as an assistant coach to Chris Scott, which will begin on a date to be set shortly.
More pressing is Roy and Sylvie starting kindergarten on February 2.
“I have finished with the emotions of losing a big part of me and something I have loved so much,” Pearce said.
“But grateful that I have worked really hard to maintain balance in the rest of my life so I am not in a period of great uncertainty and wondering who I am now.
“I have got wonderful opportunities ahead of me.”
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