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Self-identified feminist Nell Morris-Dalton is not afraid to say what she thinks.
Earlier this yr, the Western Bulldogs’ sixth AFLW season was derailed by the pandemic. So many gamers caught COVID that for 2 weeks working, the Canine had been unable to subject a staff. To make up for it, the part-time athletes would finally play seven video games in 30 days, travelling to 4 completely different states.
One of many video games missed was the much-anticipated Satisfaction Recreation in opposition to Carlton, an event the 2 golf equipment pioneered.
“[Not being able to play the Pride Game] is devastating and a reminder of the inequalities that also persist in our league in comparison with the AFLM,” Morris-Dalton wrote on her Instagram account on the time.
“Final yr the boys’s competitors did not get to see any video games missed. They had been positioned in a safe hub on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. This assured that there was nearly no interruption to their season, or the integrity of the boys’s sport.”
In contrast, hubs had been dominated out for AFLW, given most gamers stability careers outdoors of soccer, many in industries that put them at additional threat of publicity.
“Initially I used to be intimidated to make use of the platform I’ve,” Morris-Dalton tells the ABC.
“However with gender equality stuff, I used to be having so many conversations with people who weren’t being shared, like about how a lot we receives a commission, and what number of hours we do, and individuals are at all times shocked.
“The one approach we are able to see change is that if individuals are educated on the fact of what is occurring, so I took it upon myself to be the one to talk out.”
‘I’ve by no means felt extra exhausted in my life’
As a nurse, the COVID publish was near Morris-Dalton’s coronary heart.
On the top of the pandemic, the 21-year-old labored 800 placement and coaching hours on the Royal Melbourne Hospital, all of the whereas avoiding an infection in an try and maintain the AFLW season — and most significantly, her sufferers — alive.
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However whereas AFLW gamers are sometimes lauded for such extraordinary feats, Morris-Dalton desires to see a shift in discourse.
“At the moment I’ve been working two jobs: nursing and footy,” she wrote in one other Instagram publish, this one from August.
“This consists of 16 hour days on my ft. I’m frequently praised for this effort and advised it is unbelievable, nevertheless we have to begin altering the dialog and recognising how incorrect it’s that as feminine athletes we have now to do that.”
Morris-Dalton has by no means had the posh of focusing purely on soccer. She has been on the competitors’s minimal wage since her debut in 2020.
Final season she was on a wage of $20,239. This yr, it has elevated considerably to $39,184 because of a brand new Collective Bargaining Settlement (CBA).
However Morris-Dalton continues to wrestle to discover a stability between the competing calls for in her life, this yr greater than ever.
Season six was performed in AFLW’s common time of yr: early summer time. However when the league introduced that season seven can be pulled ahead to August, simply 4 months after the grand remaining, Morris-Dalton’s plans had been thrown into disarray.
Having completed her nursing diploma — which she accomplished full-time over the previous few seasons — she is now doing what’s often known as a graduate yr, which suggests she works full-time as a nurse, below supervision.
Morris-Dalton had a selection of when to begin — and selected the tip of season six, in March this yr. Little did she know that one month later, she can be within the midst of one other pre-season.
“It threw my complete life out,” she says.
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“I used to be attempting to make it work as finest as attainable. Once I selected March, I hoped to have six months to search out my ft in nursing. I assumed, ‘footy will come round once more, however I will be comfy in my function, have sturdy connections and relationships on the hospital, I will be used to the workload.'”
She had additionally earmarked a much-needed break to go travelling with pals. The 12-month plan, she says, made the daunting schedule really feel extra “do-able”.
As a substitute, she discovered herself doing evening shifts in the course of pre-season, working from 9pm till 7:30am.
“Evening shift is such a tough rhythm to get into,” Morris-Dalton says.
“I actually struggled to sleep, so I might come house, sleep for like, three hours, then do an 11km working session at coaching, return to work and be on my ft all evening.
“I’ve by no means felt extra exhausted in my life. I used to be sick on a regular basis and I could not get better correctly as a result of I wasn’t sleeping. I can not even clarify how dangerous it felt on my physique.”
Morris-Dalton contemplated quitting nursing
The pre-season scenario was so untenable, Morris-Dalton knew one thing needed to change.
“I went in very bold and hopeful it might work, nevertheless it grew to become evident very early on that I simply could not get out of myself what I wished,” she says.
“You are so emotionally drained, it was similar to this fixed stage of fatigue I could not get better from absolutely. That was kinda the tipping level for me to be like, I can not work and do footy any extra.”
Morris-Dalton briefly thought-about strolling away from nursing, however says she knew it wasn’t going to be financially viable. As a substitute, she had an vital dialog with the schooling staff on the hospital.
“They had been so beautiful, I can not thank them sufficient,” she says.
“I simply wasn’t coping, in order that they let me scale back my hours, which usually you are not allowed to do in your grad yr.”
In addition they allowed her to place a maintain on doing evening shifts, one thing she has combined emotions about.
“Simply with the ability to sleep has been enormous, with the ability to relaxation extra has made such a distinction,” she says.
“It is positively a disgrace having to scale back my hours (although), as a result of I actually do love each my jobs. It is simply one other instance of us having to decide on between careers, and put one in entrance of the opposite always.
“That is one other stressor, coping with your employer outdoors of footy. I spent a lot time in my supervisor’s workplace with all of this.
“You’re feeling like a burden since you wish to do your finest, however you are continually asking for particular consideration.”
The ‘trauma’ of getting dropped
Such a gruelling expertise has inevitably had an affect on Morris-Dalton’s kind this season.
“That is the toughest half for me to just accept,” she says.
“I went into this yr desirous to have an enormous yr, carry out rather well, and make a press release that I may very well be an enormous participant within the competitors.”
Golden alternatives had additionally introduced within the Bulldogs’ ahead line, with spearhead Bonnie Toogood departing for Essendon and Izzy Huntington for the Giants.
In spherical one, Morris-Dalton had 11 disposals within the Bulldogs’ win over the Giants, however was dropped for the next two video games in opposition to the Dockers and Port.
It compounded the emotional misery of her pre-season.
“Getting dropped is so traumatic,” she says.
“I am going by each emotion. I am indignant, upset, triggered, it is unending. Everybody asks why you are not getting a sport, after which you have to go to coaching and be the happiest and one of the best.
“However I’ve to snap out of it shortly, as a result of on the finish of the day, it isn’t my full-time job and I can not let it outline my life outdoors of footy.
“It is so arduous, and it is such an unstated a part of the sport — outsiders by no means contemplate the affect. Every week there’s eight different ladies who’re doing every part to get a sport however not getting picked. Now once I’m within the staff, I simply really feel a lot for them.”
Being a role-model for younger ladies provides Morris-Dalton goal
Regardless of how arduous some points of her footy journey have been, Morris-Dalton has by no means thought-about strolling away from the sport.
“Footy’s the factor that provides me probably the most goal,” she says.
“I did not have girls footballers as role-models once I was youthful, and now I get to be certainly one of them, which is fairly wild.”
Over the past couple of years, she says, the “enormity” of what it means to be one of many first era of AFLW footballers has began to sink in.
“It is small issues, like a younger lady recognising you and seeing the joy of their faces,” she says.
“It is a bizarre, bittersweet feeling, like woah I want I had had that, however then I take into consideration the oblique impacts it’s going to have on them — whether or not they wish to play footy or not, of their head they know they’ll do it.
“They will take a look at folks of their very own gender on TV. For me, that is such an enormous a part of why, for all of the hardship it takes, I’ve pushed by to remain on this competitors.”
Morris-Dalton additionally desires to maintain utilizing her platform to make sure improved outcomes for future generations of women and girls.
For this she takes inspiration from mum Sandra, who’s an outspoken advocate for gender fairness. Of their family, says Morris-Dalton, conversations about feminism had been “pure”.
“Individuals have this stereotype of feminism as some aggressive factor, however that is sexism in itself,” she says.
“I feel it is due to the entire ‘girls should not communicate up, it isn’t fairly’ factor.
“I could not care much less about these males who’re on the market trolling us as a result of they’re scared of ladies. They’re simply terrified of dropping their energy.
“Mum was positively an enormous role-model for me, having that form of individual in my life who did not again down from confronting issues. It inspired me to talk out for different folks too.”
‘Talking out’ the trail to modified situations
Within the lead as much as the latest CBA negotiations, for instance, Morris-Dalton was closely invested within the technique of making certain a greater pay deal for the gamers that recognised the quantity of unpaid work they had been doing.
An AFLPA survey from earlier within the yr discovered that many gamers had been doing 50-100 per cent in extra of their contracted hours, a scenario she describes as “degrading” and “belittling”.
However because of a 94 per cent pay rise this season, Morris-Dalton says situations are “much better” and that her membership, the Bulldogs, have ensured the gamers aren’t working past their contracted hours.
She can also be buoyed by the variety of her friends who’re beginning to communicate their minds, Morris-Dalton type.
“The youthful the competitors will get, the extra unapologetic folks coming by get,” she says.
“Once I first acquired to the membership I used to be a bit shocked that there was a divide between a number of the gamers who wished to be thankful for what we had, and others who wished to talk up.
“I feel that has completely modified now. The gamers are spurred on by seeing the adjustments which have occurred. Individuals have realised that by talking up, and being feminists, that is while you see change.”
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