Daisy Pearce

Daisy Pearce (born 27 May 1988) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Melbourne Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW) and is the current AFLW senior coach of the West Coast Eagles.

Daisy Pearce was born on 27 May 1988 in Bright, Victoria, to parents Daryl and Dee.

She has two brothers, Will and Harry; two younger half-siblings, Ruby and Ali, through her mother; and an older half-brother, Aaron, through her father.

Her parents separated in 1995 and her mother and brothers relocated to the Melbourne suburb of Eltham while Daisy remained with her father in Wandiligong, near Bright in the Alpine Shire area, where she attended Bright P-12 College.

When Pearce was a teenager, she returned to live with her mother and the rest of the family, and attended Eltham High School.

As a child, Pearce supported the Carlton Football Club, and one of her favourite players was Carlton premiership player and former captain Brett Ratten.

She was enrolled in the Vickick program, which later became Auskick, and played junior football alongside boys as a child.

Her father was a coach at the Bright Football Club, which allowed Pearce to begin training with the under-13 boys team from the age of eight; she played alongside her brother Harry and future premiership defender Ben Reid.

Pearce needed dispensation from the local league to continue playing alongside boys as a teenager, but was disallowed, which played a part in her decision to move to Eltham.

At high school, she took up netball, tennis and volleyball, making a national youth squad for the latter, before eventually picking up football again.

Pearce began her state league career in 2005 with the Darebin Falcons in the Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL), captaining the club from 2008 to 2016 and playing roughly 200 games until her final match in 2017.

She is a ten-time premiership player (seven times as captain), seven-time league best and fairest winner in the VWFL and VFL Women's (VFLW) competitions and five-time Darebin best and fairest winner.

Pearce began playing with in the premier division of the Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) in 2005 at the age of 16, winning the Lisa Hardeman Medal in her first season and going on to play roughly 200 games with the women-only football club.

Pearce was a member of the Australian team that played against Ireland in the 2006 Ladies' International Rules Series which, as of 2016, remains the only women's series to have taken place.

In 2007, Darebin went through the VWFL season undefeated, defeating in the grand final, and Pearce was named among the best players in the grand final.

In June 2007, at the age of 19, she was one of two VWFL representatives, alongside Shannon McFerran, named to play in the E. J. Whitten Legends Game; Pearce was named in the Victorian team while McFerran was named for the All Stars, marking the first time female players were included in the annual charity match.

Pearce captained the Victoria under-19 team at the 2007 AFL Women's National Championships; she was named in the championships' All-Australian team and won the award for joint-player of the tournament.

Pearce was named in the leadership group for the Victorian senior team at the 2009 championships and was again named in the championships' All-Australian team.

Darebin would go on to win five VWFL premierships in a row, before losing to St Albans in the grand final in 2011; Pearce, who had by then become captain, was named Darebin's best player in the loss.

She was named deputy vice-captain for Victoria at the 2011 championships.

She represented Victoria at both under-19 and senior level, and was recruited by Melbourne with the first selection in the inaugural national women's draft in 2013 for the first women's exhibition game.

In 2013 and 2014, Darebin went through both seasons undefeated, defeating by 49 points in the 2013 grand final and 30 points in the 2014 grand final; Pearce was best afield in the latter.

In May 2013, the Australian Football League (AFL) announced that a women's exhibition game would be held for the first time during its annual Women's Round, involving AFL clubs and the.

Fifty of the top female footballers in Australia were selected in the inaugural national women's draft later that month to play for the two clubs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in a curtain raiser to the AFL match between the clubs in June; Pearce was recruited by Melbourne with the first selection in the draft, and was later named as Melbourne's captain.

She was adjudged best afield with 28 disposals in the first exhibition game, which Melbourne won by 32 points in front of a crowd of almost 8,000.

She featured in Darebin's third consecutive grand final win over Diamond Creek in 2015.

During her career in the VWFL, Pearce won the Darebin best and fairest award five times and the Helen Lambert Medal as the VWFL's best and fairest player six times.

The VFL Women's best and fairest award, of which Pearce was the inaugural recipient in 2016, was also named partly in her honour in 2018.

Following her playing retirement, Pearce transitioned into coaching.

She was as a development coach with the Geelong Football Club's Australian Football League (AFL) team in 2023, and will serve as AFLW senior coach of West Coast from the 2024 season.

Outside her playing and coaching career, Pearce became an established media personality in both television and radio.

She is an expert commentator for the Seven Network and 1116 SEN's AFL coverage; she appeared on the Seven Network program AFL Game Day as a rotating panel member from 2016 until the show's cancellation in 2020 and hosted her own podcast on SEN, This Is Grit, in 2019.

In March 2016, the VFL Women's (VFLW) was launched and Darebin was named among ten teams from the VWFL to participate in Victoria's new state league competition.

Pearce won the inaugural VFL Women's best and fairest award and played in the first VFLW premiership in 2016 as Darebin defeated Melbourne University.

Often regarded as the face of women's Australian rules football, Pearce served as Melbourne captain from the competition's inaugural season in 2017 until her retirement at the end of season 7, having previously captained the club in the women's exhibition games staged prior to the 2016 creation of the league.

She captained Victoria in the inaugural AFL Women's State of Origin match in 2017, where she was adjudged best afield.

Pearce was a marquee signing for Melbourne's AFL Women's team leading into the competition's first season in 2017.

At AFLW level, Pearce is a three-time AFL Women's All-Australian (including as captain of the 2017 team and vice-captain of the 2018 team) and captained Melbourne to its first AFL Women's premiership in season 7.

She is a four-time AFLPA AFLW best captain and three-time Melbourne best and fairest winner, with the latter named in her honour in 2023.

She played in Darebin's grand final win over Diamond Creek in 2017, kicking a goal and receiving praise from coach Jane Lange for her leadership and commitment as Darebin won its fifth consecutive state league premiership and tenth in twelve seasons.