Tayla Harris has spoken of her revulsion at vile comments made about a photo of her playing football and says it's a police matter.
AFLW star Tayla Harris has spoken of her revulsion at vile comments made about a now iconic photo of her on the sports field.
The action shot of the Carlton star loading up a drop punt during her side's AFLW final round match against the Western Bulldogs is actually nothing new.
The only difference this time was the hate spewed from trolls targeting Harris on social media.
The "inappropriate and offensive" comments have armed Harris and the AFLW with a "line in the sand" moment.
The swift, widespread and righteous response from across the game in condemning the comments and supporting Harris has created a banner the entire sport — and perhaps the entire country — can rally behind.
The image shows the elegance, power and athleticism Harris delivers every time she steps on the field. It is this, Harris' moment of athletic legacy, that appears destined to become further normalised — that women do execute a set of skills to a freakish level when they step on the footy field, and will continue to do so.
Harris made an appearance on breakfast radio on Wednesday morning where she accepted the notion the photo appears certain to become an iconic moment in the development of the AFLW — even if she shrugs off the athleticism on display in the photo captured by Michael Wilson.
"It's not about me now, it's about a much bigger picture," she said.
"I'm happy to talk about this because I'm feeling fine now, but there's people who may have experienced things like sexual assault who would have seen this too and their reactions might be very different.
She said she has read some of the comments directed at her and said they are simply "repulsive".
"Some of the comments were sexual abuse, what I would consider sexual abuse on social media," she said.
"This will be an iconic image of Tayla, similar to the Ted Whitten image," Harford said.
They weren't the only ones who recognised the image as a future statue for the entire sport.
One of the best pictures and follow through I've seen. Prob should use your style as our logo. It's legit awesome. Society has some major losers in it, and it is unfortunate you had to come across them.
AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan on Wednesday morning asked footy fans not to forget the point of the original decision to post the photo of Harris — to celebrate her athleticism.
"She is an incredible athlete Tayla Harris and that photo showed what a powerful, strong athletic woman she is," McLachlan told ABC Sydney.
"This is an issue with social media and there are people who make clearly unacceptable comments and whether it's misogynist or racist or pulling down diversity, we work hard to moderate them, but they're clearly unacceptable and other people on those platforms, increasingly I think, are holding them to account.
Harris said she doesn't really understand the fuss behind the photo, saying her booming follow through is simply something she has always done since first playing footy as a 10-year-old. "I've seen this photo a few times, but that's how I kick," she said.
"I thought it was a cool photo. I am proud of myself because the reason I can do it is that I've put so much time, money and effort into my body to allow me to do that.
The widespread public support for Harris on social media continued on Wednesday morning and it doesn't seem like it will stop until well after Harris laces on her boots for the AFLW preliminary final between Carlton and Fremantle at Ikon Park on Saturday.
Delete the comments and shut down further comments.
Identify the trolls and boot them from https://t.co/a4WP1whhIG and matches.
Then quadruple the size of the image.