Daisy Pearce

In January 2020, Pearce was reinstated as Melbourne captain, with Melbourne coach Mick Stinear saying, "With her knowledge of our game plan, and her ability to instruct, support and give feedback on and off the field, she's just the ideal person to lead this group". She also ran a personal best two-kilometre time trial time in the lead-up to her return to competitive football. Later that month, Pearce made a successful return to football, playing the first three quarters of Melbourne's practice match win against Collingwood. Leading into the season, womens.afl journalist Sarah Black named Pearce at no. 5 on her list of the top 30 players in the AFLW. She played her first AFLW match in 694 days in Melbourne's round 1 win against North Melbourne the following week, and was named among Melbourne's best players in a new role across half-back. Pearce was selected in womens.afl' s Team of the Week in round 2 and was among the best afield in Melbourne's semi-final win against Greater Western Sydney with 22 disposals. She went on to be selected in the initial 40-woman squad for the 2020 AFL Women's All-Australian team, and was voted as the AFLW Players' best captain for the third time in three completed seasons.

Pearce was among several high-profile AFLW players to speak out during the 2020–2022 collective bargaining agreement negotiations in 2019, with Pearce supporting the AFL Players Association (AFLPA) and its efforts to grow the competition, saying that broader talks between the AFLPA and AFLW players would result in an agreement that would satisfy all players. "To me, it's about building relationships with different stakeholders and having trust that if the AFL Players Association tell us that moving forward 'we're going to improve communications [...] because we’ve acknowledged there's some challenges with communicating with part-time girls', I trust that they’ll do that".

Pearce had another good season in 2018, with best-on-ground performances in round 1 against Greater Western Sydney and in round 5 against Brisbane, and was selected in afl.com.au' s Team of the Week in rounds 1, 3 and 5. Her best game came in the round 5 match, in which she had 24 disposals and kicked two goals. Pearce once again played all seven games for the season, as Melbourne again finished third on the ladder and missed out on the grand final by percentage. At the end of the season, Pearce was named vice-captain of the 2018 AFL Women's All-Australian team, and again won the Melbourne best and fairest award and AFLW Players' best captain award. Having resumed in the VFL Women's for Darebin in 2017 immediately after the inaugural AFL Women's season, Pearce sat out the 2018 VFL Women's season, citing the need to give her body a break from football. Melbourne signed Pearce for the 2019 season during the trade and signing period in May 2018; however, on 31 August, Pearce announced her pregnancy with twins via Instagram, meaning that she would miss the 2019 season. Her place on Melbourne's list was filled by Casey Sherriff, who played for Melbourne's VFL Women's affiliate Casey, and Elise O'Dea (who succeeded Pearce as Darebin captain in 2017) and Shelley Scott were eventually announced as co-captains in her place.

Pearce continued to mentor and work with Melbourne players in an unofficial assistant coach role when they returned for pre-season training in November 2018, and gave birth to twins in February 2019. By April, she was back to her playing weight, and later that month, she signed for the 2020 season. In July 2019, Pearce returned to the club to train three days a week as part of what she called her "pre-pre-pre-season" for 2020, and resumed training with her Melbourne teammates three weeks later. In August, Pearce was announced as an assistant coach to Dermott Brereton for the Victorian team in that year's E.J. Whitten Legends Game.

After Tiffany Cherry hit out at the Nine Network in February 2018 for failing to stand up for gender equality after being replaced as host of the Nine program Women's Footy by Clint Stanaway, Pearce said that it was better to have both men and women involved in commentating and talking about the men's and women's competitions. "I enjoy seeing men working across and well-informed football commentators talking about [women's football]... why can’t we see men working across the AFL Women’s competition?" She said that if there was a belief that only women should call AFLW games and only men should call AFL games, "It’s almost as if we are taking a few steps back".

When reports emerged in August 2018 that the 2019 home-and-away season could be reduced from seven rounds to six, despite the AFL Women's competition expanding to ten teams and implementing a conference system and preliminary finals, Pearce was vocal in her opposition. "It doesn't sit well with me or a lot of the players... I thought when those two new teams came in [...] I was rubbing my hands together thinking, 'We are going to get a legitimate competition here, we will play everyone once and head into a finals series, you beauty'... in reality, this is a gimmicky tournament". The 2019 home-and-away season was eventually left at seven rounds.

Pearce is widely regarded as the face of women's Australian rules football and one of its first ambassadors. In 2016, Pearce was named Football Woman of the Year for her work as the AFL's female football ambassador, an AFL talent coordinator and a graduate intern at the Melbourne Football Club. In February 2017, Melbourne unveiled the new mascot for its women's team, named Daisy in her honour. On 7 March 2017, Pearce became the first woman to be elected as a director on the board of the AFLPA; at the same meeting, the AFLPA decided to include AFLW players as full members of the association. In September 2018, the VFL Women's best and fairest award was named the Lambert–Pearce Medal to honour both Pearce and VWFL founding committee member and former president Helen Lambert; Pearce had won the inaugural award in 2016 after having previously won six Helen Lambert Medals in the VWFL.

Pearce was drafted by Melbourne in 2016 as a marquee signing prior to the inaugural AFL Women's season, and was named the club's inaugural captain. In her three completed AFLW seasons to date, Pearce has been voted AFLW Players' best captain three times, and is a dual AFL Women's All-Australian (as captain in the 2017 team and vice-captain in the 2018 team) and dual Melbourne best and fairest winner. She also captained Victoria in the inaugural AFL Women's State of Origin match in 2017, where she was adjudged best afield.

In July 2016, Pearce was announced as one of Melbourne's two marquee players to play in the inaugural AFL Women's season, alongside Melissa Hickey. She was announced as the club's first AFLW captain in January 2017. Pearce made her AFL Women's debut in the club's inaugural match in round 1, 2017 against Brisbane at Casey Fields. She was listed among her team's best players, recording 19 disposals and a game-high ten tackles for the match. Pearce was named in Melbourne's best in wins against Collingwood, the Western Bulldogs and Carlton over the next three rounds, and was highlighted as "Player of the Week" by the AFL Players Association for her round 4 performance. After four rounds, Pearce was the highest-ranked player according to Champion Data, leading the competition for disposals and handballs, and leading in average contested possessions and goal assists. She played all seven games for the season as Melbourne finished third on the ladder, only missing out on the grand final by percentage. At the end of the season, Pearce was named captain of the 2017 AFL Women's All-Australian team and won the inaugural Melbourne best and fairest award and AFLW Players' best captain award. Melbourne signed Pearce for the 2018 season during the trade period in May 2017. She then captained Victoria in the inaugural AFL Women's State of Origin match on 2 September, where she was adjudged best afield with 37 disposals in the 97-point win.

Pearce has been a rotating panel member on the Seven Network program AFL Game Day since 2016 and is a boundary rider for Seven on television and 1116 SEN on radio, covering AFL and AFLW matches. She was a boundary rider for Seven's coverage of the AFL Grand Final in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, Pearce began appearing on the SEN morning shows SEN Breakfast (with Garry Lyon and Tim Watson) and Whateley (with Gerard Whateley), and in 2019, she also began hosting This Is Grit, a weekly podcast series on SEN focusing on female sportspeople. She previously provided special comments for Triple M in 2017 and has written columns for The Age.

In May 2013, Pearce was selected by Melbourne with the first selection in the inaugural national women's draft to play in the first women's exhibition game; among the other Melbourne draftees were future Melbourne AFLW teammates Melissa Hickey and Bianca Jakobsson. Pearce was one of fifty women to make history in June when Melbourne's women's team took on the Western Bulldogs' women's team at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the first of what would be several exhibition games between the two clubs, played as a curtain raiser to the men's match between the same two clubs. Pearce captained the team in each of the games from 2013 to 2016, and was the inaugural winner of the club's best female player award at the end of the 2014 season, polling five out of a possible six votes.

Pearce captained the Victoria under-19 team at the 2007 AFL Women's National Championships. She was named in the Victoria under-19 All-Australian team and applauded for her efforts during the week-long carnival, winning the award for joint-player of the tournament. Pearce led the team to a premiership with a 47-point win against South Australia.

Since she began her state league playing career in 2005, Pearce is a ten-time premiership player (seven as captain), six-time Helen Lambert Medallist (and inaugural winner of the VFL Women's best and fairest award in 2016, which was later named the Lambert–Pearce Medal partly in her honour) and five-time Darebin best and fairest winner at VWFL/VFLW level. She also represented Victoria three times at both senior and under-19 level, and was selected by Melbourne with the first selection in the inaugural national women's draft in 2013 prior to the first exhibition game.

Pearce began playing with Darebin in the Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) in 2005 at the age of 16. She was a member of the Australian team that played against Ireland in the 2006 Ladies' International Rules Series, which remains the only women's series to have been played. In June 2007, at the age of 19, Pearce was one of two VWFL representatives, alongside St Albans Spurs midfielder Shannon McFerran, who played in the annual E. J. Whitten Legends Game; Pearce played for Victoria while McFerran played for the All Stars, who won by 15 points.

Daisy Pearce (born 27 May 1988) is an Australian rules footballer playing for the Melbourne Football Club in the AFL Women's (AFLW). Widely regarded as the face of women's Australian rules football and one of its first ambassadors, Pearce has served as Melbourne captain since the competition's inaugural season (except for the 2019 season, which she missed due to pregnancy), having also captained the club in the exhibition games staged prior to the creation of the league. She also captained Darebin in the Victorian Women's Football League (VWFL) and VFL Women's (VFLW) from 2008 to 2016.