Tayla Harris (born 16 April 1997) is a professional Australian sportsperson best known for her careers in

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

with the

Melbourne Football Club The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons or colloquially the Dees, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier comp ...

in the

AFL Women's AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules football competition for women's Australian rules football, female players. The 2017 AFL Women's season, first season of the l ...

(AFLW) and in

professional boxing Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional fights are supervised by a regulatory auth ...

. She is a highly successful boxer, being an Australian National Boxing Federation female middleweight title holder. As a footballer, she plays as a key forward and previously played with and . Harris is an AFLW premiership player, 4 time women's

All-Australian The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perfo ...

, as well as former Carlton leading goalkicker and Melbourne leading goalkicker.

Early life and amateur career

Harris was born and raised in Brisbane's northern suburbs and began playing competitive football for Aspley at age five. She played in a mixed competition with young girls and boys until 2010. At the age of 15, she began playing senior football for Zillmere in the AFL Queensland Women's League (QAWFL), where she won the league

best and fairest In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...

award in her first season. In 2017, following a move to

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, she began playing in the VFL Women's competition with the St Kilda Sharks. She represented Queensland in the youth girls competition, and is a five time All-Australian. At the age of 17, she was drafted to the representative side as part of the AFL women's exhibition series. She continued to play for the club through 2016. She also played as part of the ' representative team in 2016. She attended primary school at Prince of Peace Lutheran College and high school at Albany Creek State High School.

AFL Women's career

Harris was one of two marquee player signings announced by in anticipation of the league's inaugural 2017 season. She made her league debut in the club's inaugural match, in round 1,

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

, against at

Casey Fields Casey Fields is a $30 million, 70 hectare multi-sports complex in the City of Casey at Cranbourne East, a southeastern suburb of Melbourne. The complex is home to Australian rules football, cricket, netball, soccer, tennis, cycle spor ...

. In round 2, she was nominated for the league Rising Star award for a two-goal, twelve disposal and seven mark performance against , and also was named "Player of the Week" by the

AFL Players Association The AFL Players Association (AFLPA, also simply known as AFL Players) is the representative body for all current and past professional Australian Football League (AFL) and AFL Women's (AFLW) players. The AFLPA promotes and protects its member ...

. At the conclusion of two rounds she was ranked equal fourth in the league for total goals scored (two) and first in the league for contested marks (eight). At the end of the season, Harris was listed in the 2017 All-Australian team. Prior to the 2017 AFLW trade period, Harris expressed her desire to be traded to a Victorian club. The trade period started on 15 May. Early talks between Brisbane and faltered; although Carlton offered Bianca Jakobsson in trade, Brisbane wanted an additional player. also made an offer for Harris. On 25 May 2017, Harris was traded to in a complex trade involving four teams, five players and a draft pick. She played six matches with her new club in 2018 and kicked five goals, tying with Darcy Vescio to share the club's leading goalkicker award with them. She also claimed All-Australian selection that year, named on the interchange bench. Her 2019 and 2020 seasons were both solid, as she kicked 8 goals in each. She was named in the All-Australian team in 2020 on the interchange bench. 2021 saw Harris down on form, playing 9 games but only kicking 4 goals and averaging under 10 disposals. Harris was involved in controversy in March 2021 after it was reported that she missed part of her training in order to create an instagram post promoting her new documentary. Around May 2021, it was revealed that Harris was looking for the club to double her salary to a total of $150,000, which were reluctant to do. Harris cautioned that she may switch sporting codes back to boxing, where she was successful in the past. It was reported that her relationship with the club had begun to deteriorate. Harris ultimately requested a trade to , and was traded on 8 June.

AFLW statistics

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2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

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2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

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2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

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2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

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Professional boxing record

Online harassment

A picture taken by AFL Media photographer Michael Willson showing Harris kicking for goal during a 2019 match against the

Western Bulldogs The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football club based in the Melbourne suburb of Footscray. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Originally named the Footscray F ...

became the target of sexual

Internet trolling In slang, a troll is a person who posts deliberately offensive or provocative messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a internet forum, forum, a chat room, an Multiplayer video game, online video game) or who performs similar be ...

after it was posted on social media by

Seven Network Seven Network (stylised 7Network, and commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is an Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, ...

. Harris retweeted the photograph with the caption: "Here’s a pic of me at work... think about this before your derogatory comments, animals". Critics of the trolls included fellow AFLW players

Erin Phillips Erin Victoria Phillips (born 19 May 1985) is an Australian basketball player and former Australian rules football player. She played nine seasons in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) for five different teams and is a two-time ...

and Darcy Vescio, Geelong player Patrick Dangerfield, cyclist Anna Meares, AFLW head of football Nicole Livingstone and

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the pre-eminent professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. It was originally named the Victorian Football League (VFL) and was founded in 1896 as a breakaway competition ...

chief executive Gillon McLachlan, and federal minister for women Kelly O'Dwyer. Phillips, Vescio, Meares and O'Dwyer joined the chorus of people condemning Seven's decision to remove the photo, which was perceived as yielding to the trolls. It was later reinstated with an apology. On 11 September 2019, a bronze statue immortalising the image was unveiled in Federation Square Melbourne. On 27 February 2020, Tayla Harris was announced as an ambassador for Our Watch, a national organisation tasked with preventing violence against women and their children.

Personal life

Harris' partner is fellow AFLW player Kodi Jacques.

Recognition

She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2019.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Tayla 1997 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Brisbane Sportswomen from Queensland Brisbane Lions (AFLW) players Carlton Football Club (AFLW) players All-Australians (AFL Women's) Australian women boxers Middleweight boxers Australian lesbian sportswomen LGBTQ players of Australian rules football Melbourne Football Club (AFLW) players 21st-century Australian LGBTQ people