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"We are in trouble." Tayla Harris' phenomenal kick just left a lot of men gobsmacked.

 

Tayla Harris kicks like a girl. Which as she has proven once again, is a kick just as powerful, if not more, than a man’s.

On Saturday, a few hours before Richmond would compete against the GWS Giants in the AFL Grand Final, the AFLW Carlton Blues player took part in a ‘longest kick’ competition, against both male and female players.

The televised Fox Footy challenge sees professional AFL stars kick the ball as far as they can across the Yarra River from Birrarung Marr.

Harris came third with a kick of 61.5 metres – longer than six AFL players.


“That is a beauty. That is massive,” host Jason Dunstall said.

“You know what the best thing about that kick is? Right now there’s another 10 blokes in the tent going: ‘Oh my god, we are in trouble’.”

“That is the purest spiral!”

Indeed, the 22-year-old defeated the likes of Josh Kennedy, Taylor Walker, Daniel Rich and Chad Wingard.

“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad,” Tayla said afterwards.

The Carlton forward’s kick is iconic after an astonishing image, by photographer Michael Willson, captured Tayla’s pure athleticism.

In March, the photo was uploaded by Channel 7 to their social media, before it was swamped with misogynistic comments from online trolls, which saw the network then controversially take it down.

Since then, however, the image has been immortalised in a bronze statue in Melbourne's CBD, unveiled earlier this month. There, it stands as a symbol of the power of women's sport.


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Top Comments

random dude au 5 years ago

Yeah she is awesome, we watch AFLW all the time here, we know already - So why bring the whole men vs women thing into this?

Maybe you could just talk about how good she is, her background, her aspirations, motivations and inspirations.

Hell, we don't even know anything about her from this article.


antipop 5 years ago

It's one of my favourite sports pics - She's an amazing athlete.