On Confidence with Fremantle Dockers Hayley Miller and Emma O’Driscoll

Gaining Ground WA Mentor Jarrah speaks with Fremantle Dockers’ Hayley Miller and Emma O’Driscoll, about their careers, struggles, love of footy, and how they build confidence in their game.

AFLW Fremantle Dockers players Hayley Miller [left] and Emma O’Driscoll [right] at their training ground. Photo: Jarrah Smith-Taylor.

J: My first initial question was what position you play, but then I just went and looked it up didn’t I? I read an article that apparently one of your really important defenders broke their cheekbone and you [Emma] had to step up.

E: Oh my god. First of all, she broke her cheek – that doesn’t even happen. Break your face…  what the hell? Of course, though, it happened to us. Really, we don’t have a lot of height in our back line, do we? When Janelle went down it was myself and Laura Pugh who had to be the key defenders and we are not key defenders. Like if you look at my size compared to someone like Taylor Harris, it is ridiculous.

J: What is your official and unofficial role on the team? Obviously, positions is your official role, but I’m thinking about unofficial roles as like ‘the team clown’ and things like that.

H: Can we give each other ones?

E: Yeah, I think it’s easier to talk about someone else.

H: Well, Drisco’s official role obviously is if we need matchups, Drisco will match up on the athletic, tall running forward. So, in an official capacity, a pretty important defender in our backline. I think unofficially… ‘hype girl’ a little bit.

E: I love that! I really love that.

H: She’s very high energy all the time and you don’t even have to try too hard. If she tried to settle down, it wouldn’t work.

E: It would be weird.

H: So Drisco’s a lot of high energy, a lot of voice all the time. Sometimes not sure what’s coming out of your mouth, but something’s always coming out of your mouth. Nah but definitely hype girl. 

E: I’m happy with that!

J: I’d be happy to be ‘hype girl’.

E: I’m stoked with ‘hype girl’. So, Miller… ‘oh captain, my captain’ as I call her. She is one of our very important midfielders, along with Ciara Bowers, we have Dana East in there, Megs Coffman, anyone and everyone at the moment. And I would say your role on-field, Miller, would be that you not only hunt the ball, but when you do win the ball, I would say your huge strength would be how powerful and explosive you are out of a contest. Miller drives her legs and is always the one to kind of break free to then give that disposal, whether that’s a kick or handball. She also can get a bit of white-line fever coming from her old West Perth days, so when she’s fired up, I reckon she can play her absolute best footy because she goes in even harder. You never doubt that Hayley’s always going to give her 100% and that would be something that never wavers with Hayley, which is why I think she’s stepped into the role as our captain so smoothly. She had a really tough gig when she first got elected as captain because we were in the hub in Melbourne. It was during peak Covid times, a lot of uncertainty, but that effort and hard-working personality of hers allowed her to step into the role and allowed her to absolutely flourish now that she’s had a bit of experience there. So, I guess that links in with her off-field role, she’s not only a leader through how she communicates to the group, but I think it’s a lot of what she does as well. She’s leading the way and showing other girls how to work hard, how to put in the effort, gets around the players. But I think you pretty empathetic as well, Miller, and I think that’s pretty important. And I’d love to say that comes from the fact that she’s a physio like me, but I definitely think Miller is an empath and I think can relate to a lot of the girls’ situations. Is that a good explanation? 

H: I like that.

J: That was very good! It’s like you guys have to do interviews all the time.  

E: I can just look at her and know what to say.

J: That was good, that was very good. Our last initial question is what got you into playing footy and why do you keep coming back? 

H: Originally it was just that a friend of mine played footy. I played at school just for fun, we just had a little after-school girls comp. You could only play that in Year 10 so I started playing that when I could. I’d always kicked around with my brother when I was younger and loved it, but never thought about playing it. It wasn’t until a little bit later that one of my friends outside of school was like ‘I’m going to go and play for West Perth’ so I thought ‘Yeah alright I’ll have a go’. But I had to make a decision because mum and dad wouldn’t let me do everything, so I had to give up netball, and I used to play soccer a bit as well. So, I had to give up a couple of different sports, especially the winter ones, to focus on one [footy]. It was just to try something different, because I’d had enough of netball, wasn’t really going to get anywhere with it – not that footy was something to get anywhere with, it was just something new and fun and I loved it. And I keep coming back because I did a lot of individual sports too when I was younger. I did little athletics and surf lifesaving. So, it was all quick races where you do a lot of training and then it’s over and done with, in a matter of seconds. Whilst you train with people, I found that I’d put way too much pressure on myself. And it came to a point where I wasn’t even enjoying it anymore. So, moving over to footy, obviously I still want to be the best that I can be, but it doesn’t rely on just me. I could do literally everything and still lose a game because it matters to everyone else pitching in as well. And if I’m playing terribly, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to lose either. I’ve got so many people that I can lean on. I think that’s what I think about the leadership space too is that I can try and influence others. Because if we all work together - it doesn’t matter if you’re the most skilful team - if you all work together you can literally beat any team.

J: Stunning. That’s a quote right there.

E: Beautiful. For me, I was a netballer growing up. I definitely played a lot of different sports because I grew up in the country, in Northam on my family farm. Growing up in the country girls played netball, boys played football, that was just kind of the standard rule. Because I had two younger brothers, I used to watch them play footy. My whole life revolved around AFL to be honest. I was playing netball on a Saturday, then I’d go watch my brothers play football, then the AFL would be on that night and the next day and we’d kind of plan our whole week around footy. My mum played a really high level of netball, so she was my role model at the time. I did really well at netball but then got to the point where I didn’t really like the sport anymore, and that was probably to do with the pressure I put on myself. I wasn’t really seeing a pathway into professionalism with it anymore and just generally not enjoying the political side of sport, especially with a sport like netball which is quite established. And so, when I was seventeen, I went to school country for Northam Senior High School in Year 12. I played a week of footy, rolled my ankle second game and thought ‘this is not for me’. But I then received an invitation to trial for the State team and at that time women’s footy was so new, I had no idea it existed, I had no idea you could play at a high level. I was literally playing with my friends in Year 12, received a state invite and thought ‘You know what? I’m going to go along, I’m going to meet some new people, I’m going to hopefully make a transition from netball to footy’ and that’s what I ended up doing. I played State 18s which was really cool to be involved in that pathway. I played WAFLW for Swan Districts as well in there and then I ended up being drafted to Fremantle which was so surreal because it all happened really fast. It was never a dream. Everyone always says ‘this would have been your dream’ but it actually wasn’t my dream, and it wouldn’t have been yours either.

H: You couldn’t have that as a dream.

E: There was no such thing as females playing a high level of what was considered a man’s sport, let alone actually getting paid. So, it wasn’t my dream, it was my brother’s dream, and I was the first one to get drafted so I’m going to continue to claim that forever. The reason I love footy so much is definitely the culture surrounding the game. The love of the game itself and the culture within the group and the girls. I just love that all these girls will be my friends for the rest of my life, and you go out to bat for each other every game. Like Miller said you can have an absolute stinker of a game and still come away with a win because you’re relying on another twenty girls out there which I think is so cool. I think it’s special that we get to play this amazing game at a high level and see the influence that we’re having on young girls now to know that they can be what they can see. It’s bloody exciting.

J: That’s another awesome quote. That’s so crazy. 

E: It’s so crazy! Like I said, it wasn’t our dream. Footy wasn’t our dream. It couldn’t be. Were your family fine with you playing footy?

H: They never really wanted me to play when I was younger. I’d go and watch my brothers play and there was, on the very odd occasion, a girl playing. They never said ‘no, you’re not playing’ but just never entertained the idea so I never jumped on it. Cause mine was kind of similar, I played State 18s before I played any actual WAFL. Cause I had the same sort of thing, I was in school and got invited to do this one-day weekend carnival thing. Went down and then they scouted from there and were like ‘come down to State 18s training’ and then it all went from there.

E: That’s insane. It’s crazy to think now, when you reflect on your pathway. So weird. But so good that we can do what we do now. That’s self-belief though. When you first started, you had to throw everything at it and just believe in yourself to know how to do it. You had idea what the outcome was going to be. We both didn’t know what was going to come out of it? Was AFLW even going to make it? We didn’t know.

H: I had no idea what I was doing on the field, let alone the rest of it. The beauty of it being a new sport was there was a lot of people in the same boat brought from different places. The skill level wasn’t great then, but you just give it a go and see how you go. You’re good at other sports so you give footy a crack. It’s so good to see it now though where we’re at compared to then. Now there’s a level that you’ve got to be at which is so cool to see, it’s not just any woman and their dog who can come play. Anyone can play, but to get to that elite level you’ve got to be the best.

J: And there’s a clear pathway for young players now, which is so good. It’s so crazy because my experience is not remotely the same. I started playing water polo when I was eight and soccer when I was five. And it was always ‘yeah, I could make something of this’.

E: Yeah, you could see that, and you knew that that was there. It’s insane.

J: Well, that’s a good segue way because we’re moving into confidence now. This is a really broad question – we can think about it a little bit. But I was wondering if you could describe what confidence looks like to you? Because I feel like there are different perceptions of confidence.

H: I think as I’ve gotten older and learnt new things, I think confidence is something within you, rather than something that others can actually see on you. If you believe you can do something, that’s you having confidence in yourself to be able to do it. That might be out on the footy field, it might be speaking in front of people, whatever it is. I’ve learnt that you can go out and look confident without being truly confident inside. At the same time, I think that’s the beauty of confidence. There’s no hard-and-fast rule on confidence. You can go out and look confident, and the more that you do that, the more you can translate it into genuine confidence. You’re not born with confidence. It’s something you can work on and feel more comfortable in whatever situation you’re in to then become more confident. So, I think it is definitely something within you, but it is something that you can work on and improve.

E: I agree. I think confidence is something that is developed based on your past experiences, your upbringing and how you perceive yourself. I think that comes back to a big one for me being self-love. I read something the other day and listened to a podcast about: it's not about the human doing it's about the human being. And what that means is ‘hey I'm Emma physiotherapist’ - that's what I'm doing. Me as a human being – ‘Hey I'm Emma and I believe in integrity, and I believe in equality, and I want fairness, and I am a goofball, that's me as a human being. So, I think that brings it back to knowing your values and knowing what you want to achieve which then allows you to have confidence in everything you do because you know what you stand for. It’s super important to love yourself and love your values and know your values for you to be able to achieve your goals. That’s the only way you can achieve your goals and set your goals is by knowing what you want to want to do in life and who you are. Confidence is for me having a smile on my face and like Miller said, you may not actually feel at the time, but I think the more you do something and the more you practise something as well, the more confident you become in that. I love the word confidence. It’s the prettiest thing you can wear, guys. I read something about that as well. Confidence is the prettiest thing you can wear. I feel like I'm very I'm attracted to people that are confident right?

J: I feel like it's very common - everyone finds confidence attractive. Not arrogance! Confidence.

H: There’s a line.

E: Obviously everyone has their insecurities for sure, but I think if their confident in who they are regardless of what those insecurities are.  

J: How would you describe your experiences building confidence over the course of your footy career or just in your life in general?

H: It’s about having experiences and similar experiences over and over again. If you just do something once, you're probably not going to get a lot out of that. I think with footy coming in I didn't know the game, like I've watched the game a lot from the outside, but actually playing it's a whole different thing. Just in a footy sense from where I started to where I am now, I feel fairly confident in my ability as a footballer. That's not to say that I don't have a lot to learn and when I make mistakes, I’m like ‘I want to be better at that, I’m going to practice that’.

E: I’m just going to butt in here. Tell Jarrah your experience with when you first became captain. Because I've noticed a huge shift in you, because obviously it was a terrible time. Explain how you have developed confidence in your leadership role because I think now, you're a far more confident leader and I think that actually then trickles into the group. We've always had confidence and we've always had trust in you, but how do you think that's developed?

H: When I became captain, Karen had been the captain to five years up to that point. So, in my head I was like ‘Well the girls don't know any other way, so if I do something different, how is that going to be received? Are they going to like the way I do things?’ Cause I don't think Joey and I are super different, but there are definitely distinct differences in the way that we would do things. She's a little bit stricter and harder on things probably then I am. I’m probably a bit more of a people pleaser than what she is. So then it's like how do I navigate that? Right at the start Johnny was actually still in the team too so then it was like am I stepping on toes? So, there was a lot of things playing out because she was still part of it as well. How much help do I ask from her and how much do I let her just do her thing? Obviously, we had the hub and stuff like that so that was a whole another thing in itself, because it was just lots of unknowns when we got over there, and things changed. There were certain things that were pretty difficult to manage. But I think the main thing for me firstly was just believing that I was put in this position for a reason and then finding where I sort of fit and how much I wanted to do and what I want to be perceived as, as a leader. And I think that just takes a lot of time. I still think even from where I am now to when I retire, it’s going to continue to grow.

E: Can’t agree more. For me, I reckon at the beginning I definitely didn't play footy with confidence and that came from not knowing the game and not growing up kicking a ball. We all have a negative bias. Everyone goes to the things that they do poorly, before the things that they do well. For me, kicking is one of my weaknesses. I would say it’s something with room for improvement and I’m continuing to work on it now. At the beginning I definitely didn't have any confidence with kicking, I wanted to handball the ball every single chance I got. I wanted someone to run past and take the footy off me because I didn't have confidence in what I was going to do. And that came down to nothing to do with my bloody values, it came down to do with the fact that I was playing a completely foreign sport, that I've grown up watching, but playing it is a whole different thing. I think what helped me develop confidence is, like Miller said, practising it. Now I'm going to continue practise it and we're going to continue to learn and get better. But I think my mindset changed and as I've matured as a person and was surrounded by older mentors like Hayley and like Johnny and like Eps, I think my mindset then shifted to ‘it wasn't about me playing out there, it's about the team success’ and defining what my role was for the team. The team didn't need me to lace out a 45 kick every time I got the ball, the team needed me just get the thing out of the fifty so that no one could score. When I shifted that and also learnt how to talk to myself on the field, as Miller would know as well, instead of going and saying, ‘Oh that was a terrible kick, that means I'm terrible at kicking’, it was ‘That could have been a terrible kick, but it doesn't define my kicking for the rest of the game’. Ciara Bowers says to me now while I'm out there, if I stuff up and I drop my head, the first thing she says is ‘What are you going to do now, Drisco?’, ‘What are you going to focus on now?’ and just changing that straight away so that it’s not a cascading effect and doesn't affect the next kick or the next handball. And I think that's how now I have a lot more confidence in my game, because I know what my strengths are, and I know kicking is not one of them and probably never will be but know that I am gaining confidence doing that. As Miller would say I'm actually able to kick the ball without breaking down inside compared to what I started with. I definitely think that confidence is something that you're always going to struggle with but it's something you can always build and work on.

H: I think Drisco’s a funny one because you're such an outgoing person to most people they’d be like ‘Drisco’s super confident’ but actually knowing you, you’re probably one of the least confident people that I actually know in terms of football and in lots of different things. That perception of someone who's confident is that they’re loud and they're really bubbly and they really up-and-about all the time, but often that's actually a distraction from the fact that someone is super insecure, and they struggle with a bit of confidence.

E: I can’t agree more. That’s one of the things that I've had to work on is that obviously my personality is outgoing, but I think sometimes that can be a front in a sense that if act loud and upbeat, people will think I know what I'm doing but often I have no idea. I guess those internalised thought-processes about yourself is something that I've definitely had to work on.

J: I relate entirely. I do the same thing. I would agree that it’s often a little bit of a façade or a coping mechanism, one of the two. Can I ask - I think we've already touched on it - but  what strategies do you use to build confidence? You said self-talk is really important. We had Tash Rigby for a panel and her main thing was ‘this pass doesn't define me’. You made a bad pass, who cares, you need to move on because there's 45 minutes to go.

E: Love Tash. So good.

H: Training-wise, that’s the best way of building confidence in a game cause you've done it 1000 times before. For me, I’ve got to do a lot of speaking things and I don't find that too daunting, but it's usually probably because I'm prepared. So, I try and make sure that I prepare myself. If I walk into something that I know I haven't prepared for or I haven't read the brief properly or I’m not sure where I’m going and who I’m meeting, then I'll feel a lot more nervous about it and a lot more anxious about it. Whereas for most of the time, especially for really big, important things or events, I’ll have a read about it, read about some of the people that are going to be there. If it's an International Women's Day thing, where it’s equity versus equality, I’d better have a Google about what does that actually mean in the definition-sense so then I can relate my experiences to that. If I know that I've actually looked at it and done the work, then I’m going to be happy with what I put out because I know that it's got some meaning behind it and some research behind it. 

E: Love that! Preparation’s good. I think one more thing for me would probably be talking to other people around you and learning about their experiences and what they do and their strategies. Not saying you have to copy that, you’ve got to find what works for you, but the only way to find out what works for you is exploring and experimenting and I think why not use the amazing people around you. For me, I'm surrounded by 30 incredibly strong women who do all different things in their lives, but we all come here to play footy and have one sole purpose out there and that is to play a team sport and hopefully get a win. So, I think using my teammates and learning from them is definitely a way that I've built confidence in myself.

H: Well, it’s an easier way to bypass mistakes that you don't have to make yourself. Like you said, some things will work for you that don't work for others, but for some things it's like ‘Okay well that person made that mistake, I’m not going to do that’. It might be something as simple breaking a team rule that we've got.

E: Even little activities we've done at football in leadership sessions I think have really helped me as well. We did one at camp one year. Each player had a blank canvas sheet of paper with their number or their name on it, and every single player had to go around and write something about that person, whether that was something funny that had no relevance to football, whether that was something about their personality, what they brought to the team, what they brought to the club. And I think that's obviously confidence that has developed from other people, but I still think it still builds your self-belief cause you're like ‘Oh my god! Hayley Miller thinks that I am the hype girl! Oh, my goodness!’. I think that is super important to see. It shouldn't be just based on what other people think of you, but I think it does help instil what you're good at and make you believe in it.

J: That was really good! You’ve just answered my next question again. It's literally how do you build up each other’s confidence, but I mean that's an amazing exercise. I mean you’re a captain so say the team is really disheartened, the game’s not going well…

H: On game days it does depend on what the feeling of the game is like. If it's like we're not doing well because we're better than what we're playing, that's when I go ‘Okay, maybe they need a bit of a rev-up’ cause we’re almost there but we're not quiet getting it. But sometimes everyone’s just super flat and it's more just uplifting them. It's not angry, it’s more like ‘Let's band together! Do it for the person next to you!’. And those ones are really hard because you have to try and encapsulate everyone in the group at the same time. Game day is hard too because I've got my own thoughts. I might not be playing very well but I've got to try and also get everyone up-and-about. Or I might be playing really well and that’s easy because then I can use the confidence that I've got in my own game at that point to then go and try and put it into other people. Sometimes it is having a one-on-one, and you're not going to get to everyone, so you have to pick who, and it's unfortunately who needs it and who is going to make the biggest difference at that time. Like there might be someone that's playing pretty average but they're nowhere near the worst and what they're doing is actually not detrimental to the team, so you go ‘okay that person is going to have to either get themselves going’. There might be someone that you know can play so much better than what they are, and they just look like they’ve got no confidence because they’ve missed a kick or missed a goal or whatever. We’ve got a lot of young girls so that's a big one. You go ‘Don't worry about what just happened then, you know what you're capable of, I’ve seen you do this 1000 times before… forget about that and just start it again’. The game days can be really hard, but obviously during the week there’s so much more time to get around people individually and sometimes it's finding out what's going on for them because it might be something completely outside of football.

E: I think that the rev-ups are really important, and I think that we all are probably thinking the exact same thing. When you come off at half time and you've had a shocking first half, everyone's thinking different thoughts in their head. But when your captain brings you in and just says a few simple things and you have to be present in that moment. You always cling onto a few words or something that someone else has said to go ‘Yeah, you know what? We are better than this!’. You have to know your players and I think tailoring different responses to different people is important, but I think the rev-ups that we get from Miller are usually quite broad and cover everything and usually puts fire in the belly to go back out there. And we’re doing it together. You’re not going out there on your own.

H: One that I’ve used before is ‘Don’t wait for me’. Because I was having a fairly good patch of games, so I was playing well. So, I said ‘Don't wait for me to do something amazing, don't wait for Ebony as well’ – she was playing well, she was kicking goals from the boundary and doing this crazy stuff – ‘But don't wait for us to do something amazing and get you going. Any one of you could be the one that gets us up and going’. Sometimes that can be the easy thing to do in a team is say someone else is going to do it, but if everyone takes it on themselves and goes ‘Okay I'm going to do it!’, you get 16 girls on the field all wanting to do something extra for the team and then someone's bound to do it.

E: The flip to that as well though is, for me personally, if I see my captain lay 10 tackles and smother every kick, I then get confidence from that and go ‘Yeah, I want to do that! I can play like that too!’. I think even those actions and watching that can be so powerful as well. Celebrate each other!

H: I remember your very first game. So, in Drisco’s debut game it was really intense, I think we won by a point, it was a draw for a lot of it.

E: I can’t, I feel sick!

H: The ball went to Drisco three times in a row, down the line. She marked all of them! Cause in your first game you’re nervous as hell anyway, and it was almost like the last line of defence kind of thing. It wasn't right down in the goal, but if she stuffed it up it could have been pretty bad for us. I wasn't captain then, I was just another player, but I'd been around for a few years. Watching a player, especially in their first game or first couple of games, who has a good one or does something that was so good and is going to set them up for the rest of their career hopefully, I still remember that. Cause there is part of you that goes ‘Oh my god, this ball is going to our debutante player’ and you’re like ‘Please mark it, please mark it, please mark it!’. But you just did it perfectly from how we trained to do it, and that instilled so much confidence. What year was that? 2020. That was our undefeated season. And then it got cancelled, but anyway.  

E: Anyway. Yeah, good season that one.

J: I had the same thing in 2020. Our water polo season, we had one league game and finals left and I was mad as well because I'm not much of a goal scorer, but that season I was the top goal scorer of the league.

E: And they canned it?

J: Yeah, I was like ‘This is my chance!’.

E: That was no good, hey?

J: That sucked. Being an athlete during Covid sucked.

E: I mean you’re not wrong there.

J: I don’t want you guys to be late for training. I just have why is building confidence so important for young players? Just throw something out there.

H: I think it is the foundation of a lot of what you do and how you sort of go about it cause if you don't have confidence in your skills, you're going to always struggle with executing them cause you're going to be in your head. Physical skills are physical. If you let your mind get in the way though, you’re going to struggle physically to actually execute those skills. Confidence comes from practising those skills over and over again, knowing that you've done it 1000 times. It’s not an accident that people are really good at certain skills, they don't just learn it overnight, they practise it over years and years. For young kids, the number one is: you can practise confidence, you can build confidence. It's not something that you're born with or not, it’s not ‘oh I don't have confidence so therefore I'm never going to have confidence’. You build the confidence; you've just got to do the work.

E: You don’t set goals that you know you can't achieve. You don't get put in the forward line and think to yourself ‘I can't kick a goal’. Like Miller said, you’re never going to be able to execute it unless you believe you can do it. Just knowing who you are and what you want to achieve and staying true to that, I think builds confidence in that and then allows you to live your life like that. I think that's really important. Then when it comes to footy, knowing that in order to succeed and be able to achieve what you want to achieve, you need to be able to believe you can do it.

~ end ~