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AFLW grand final: Melbourne Demons' Kate Hore crossed codes and emerges as likely next captain – Code

Kate Hore, like partner Corey Maynard, brushed basketball to focus on footy. The AFLW star has since evolved to become Daisy Pearce’s likely successor as Melbourne captain, writes LINDA PEARCE.
Kate Hore and her partner Corey Maynard have a common basketball background but met as footballers, then worked together as a star Melbourne AFLW player and rookie midfield coach before their sporting paths diverged.
Sort of.
Maynard, an NBL 44-gamer with the Cairns Taipans and Townsville Crocs, managed two senior games for the Demons before retiring in 2019. He is now the player development manager at the Kangaroos, who last weekend played Melbourne for a place in Sunday’s AFLW grand final.
While the couple shares an industry, but at different clubs, there was no conflict of allegiances, though.
At least not according to Hore.
“Oh, nah, nah. I told him that if he wore a North scarf that I’d break up with him,” she says of her partner of almost three years.
“So he was in the Dees’ scarf.”
No such ultimatum will be required against the Brisbane Lions, when Maynard will join Hore’s parents and sister in the 8000-strong (or small, depending on your perspective) Springfield crowd to support the current — and two-time — All Australian finishing a career-best season.
“Obviously (Maynard) was playing at Melbourne and then he was coaching us for a little bit, so we’ve known each other for quite a few years, and both have basketball backgrounds and grew up in similar (bayside) areas, so that’s kind of how we met and our connection,” says Hore.
“And it’s great, to be honest, because he just gets it. He understands what we’re going through and he’s been such a great support to me.
“Whenever I come home from training a little bit mad if we’ve had a bad session, or we’ve played a bad game, he can kind of understand and sympathises with me a little bit, and even this week he just kinda knows the pressure and can support me through it so, yeah, I feel very lucky.”
As Hore prepares for her 56th game, and chases her first premiership in her sixth season after initially being rookie-listed from VWFL club St Kilda Sharks ahead of the 2018 draft, there may be some good-natured banter between the sporting duo.
“I’m like the most competitive person ever, so I think I’ve got it over him,” laughs Hore. “I’ve played three games at the MCG, he’s only played the one, so any little advantage I get over him I’ll let him know about it.”
Including, might we suggest, two elite footy grand finals?
“Exactly! So if we win one I’ll definitely be rubbing that in.”
*****
If Maynard has Hore covered hoops-wise, given his time in the NBL before joining his Collingwood defender brother Brayden in the AFL, Hore spends little time thinking about where basketball might have taken her, having reached SEABL (now NBL1) level for the Sandringham Sabres.
The former guard was part of the female footy generation whose pathway ended during her teen years. But, like so many cross-coders, Hore, brought the ball and athletic skills honed elsewhere when her opportunity came to pursue her first love.
“It was always footy for me, to be honest. It was always my No.1 sport growing up and the only reason I didn’t play is because it wasn’t available to me,” she says.
“So I love basketball and I think I’ve been able to carry a lot of those strengths and attributes over into my footy career, but now that I’m here there’s no looking back for me.”
Thus, there were no pangs of what-if as the Opals won a bronze medal at the recent FIBA World Cup, for example. “Nah, I wasn’t that good! I think I’d probably reached my potential with basketball, so I’m happy I made the switch,” Hore explains.
“When I was growing up as an Auskicker, it’s something I never, ever thought that I would be able to do, to play one AFLW game, let alone … like, I played my 50th game this year and to be making the connections and friendships with the girls that I have, it’s just something I never dreamed of, so I feel very fortunate.
“It’s just amazing to see the opportunities now.”
There have been a couple of role changes for Hore in season seven, as the 2020 goal-of-the-year winner has enjoyed a slightly altered on-field role under long-serving head coach Mick Stinear.
“I’ve played a bit more deep forward and had some time in the midfield, and then obviously when Mick calls on me to go behind the ball during games, I’ve really relished that opportunity,” she says.
The other addition is the vice-captaincy, succeeding veteran Karen Paxman. Becoming Daisy Pearce’s official deputy and part of a leadership quartet completed by young pair Tyla Hanks and Libby Birch has forced her out of her comfort zone.
“It’s been great working alongside Daisy, she’s the best in the business at what she does, so to be able to learn and grow from her and work alongside her has been amazing,” Hore says.
“I think (the vice-captaincy has) probably just given me the confidence that the girls have put me in that position to speak up a little bit more and voice my opinions – especially on game day it kinda gets you out of your own head a little bit and gets you focusing more on the team and what we need to do to win.”
Pearce is yet to decide on her own future, saying she will rely, as always, on intuition and gut-feel to determine whether Sunday’s game is her last.
But she is effusive when asked about the teammate and friend who finished second on the goal-kicking table behind Lion Jesse Wardlaw with 16 in the regular season and another in the prelim against the Roos (as partner Corey no doubt dutifully waved his scarf).
“Oh, she’s outstanding. She’s always been one of the absolute pros of the comp in terms of the way that she prepares and goes after trying to get better,” says Pearce of Hoare, whose promotion positions her as the probable next captain when the-day-no-Demon-wants-to-talk-about eventually comes.
“Just elite skills, huge workrate, and then she’s really stepped up in her leadership this year as well. I’ve loved having her as the vice-captain; ‘Paxy’ did such a good job for a long time, and Kate’s certainly grown in that area this year.
“The amount of support that she’s given me with leading the team’s been huge, and, yeah, she’s an absolute great person to go out and play with every week, cos you know she can do the hard stuff, which we saw her doing on the weekend — like some of her tackling and smothers, and that kind of thing, but she can do the absolute sublime as well, so she’s a great teammate.”
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As Hore points out, if ever there was a year to lose a grand final, this was it.
The Demons did that, against the Crows in April. They now get their second chance, just 232 days on.
“Immediately when that siren went in Adelaide, my thoughts were ‘Wow, now I know how hard it is to get to this position, and now we’ve got to start all over again’,” says Hore.
“So seven months later to be back in this position, we’ve put a lot of hard work into it, but we’re really fortunate to be here and we’ll be having a crack on Sunday.
“Something that you can’t really teach is experience, and the fact that we’ve been there and even in the last season making a prelim, a good chunk of our girls have experienced the pressure of finals, and even just what the week looks like leading into a grand final.
“And I think our game style and our group has grown a lot since then, so we’re pretty confident that we’ve improved enough to hopefully get a different outcome.”
Connection and team defence are the two areas the 27-year-old nominates as supplementing the strength at the contest on which the Demons have long prided themselves.
Individually, Hore has been contributing on the scoreboard at well above her career average of almost a goal a game, along with impressive numbers in score involvements (56), average disposals (13.3 at 65 per cent efficiency), metres gained (average 196), but deflects questions about her own form to the default we-themed answers.
The external do-it-for-Daisy mantra is one she also eschews in favour of a doing-it-for-each-other sentiment that is planned to finally deliver the game’s ultimate prize.
“We’ve worked so hard to get to this point and I guess to cap it off with a premiership cup would be amazing,’’ says Hore, while emphasising that although footy is a win-and-loss business, there are other measures of success, given there can be only one champion.
Except this year, when there will be two, as the only dual grand finalists of 2022 attempt to win their first, and a foundation club seek to turn the incredible consistency of what has been top-four finishes in all seven seasons into winners’ medallions.
And, if so, one suspects that, in a cheeky moment of one-upmanship during the off-season, Corey Maynard might be reminded by his competitive partner that she’s got him covered there, too.
A finalist in the 2021 Harry Gordon Australian Sports Journalist of the Year Award, Linda Pearce is a Melbourne-based sportswriter with more than three decades experience across newspapers, magazines and digital media, including 23 years at The Age. One of the first women in Australia to cover VFL/AFL and cricket, she has won media awards across a range of sports – including internationally, as the recipient of the ATP’s 2015 Ron Bookman Media Excellence Award. A tennis specialist who has reported from over 50 major tournaments, including 13 Wimbledons, Linda has also covered two Olympic and two Commonwealth Games, plus multiple world championships in gymnastics and aquatics and five Netball World Cups.
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