Sydney FC rising star Caley Tallon-Henniker tells aleagues.com.au why she chose football over rugby league, fuelled by the dream of becoming a CommBank Matilda – a dream that is becoming ever closer as she develops in the Ninja A-League.
Caley Tallon-Henniker put down the phone, and sought out her parents to share the good news.
It was a Saturday morning in October 2023, and the then-17-year-old had just received word of an exciting opportunity that would prove to be life-changing.
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An injury to Sydney FC star Cortnee Vine meant there was a vacant space in the Sky Blues’ travelling squad for their tour of Uzbekistan for the AFC Women’s Championship, and head coach Ante Juric wanted the teenage winger to fill it.
But, there was just one problem.
“It was a funny one,” Tallon-Henniker tells aleagues.com.au.
“Throughout the week of training, I noticed that I seemed to be training in the starting team, and I was like: ‘This is odd. Cortnee’s injured. Maybe he (head coach Ante Juric) is just putting me in, just to fill in until he decides who’s going to start’.
“And then he gave me a call. It was Saturday morning, and I was just at home with my family, and I got a call from Ante, and I answered. He was like: ‘You’ve been training really well. I’m really impressed with you, and I just want to give you the opportunity. Do you want to come to Uzbekistan?’ And I was like: ‘Yes, of course, done, I’m there’.
“Then I got off the phone and told mum and dad, and they were like: ‘Awesome – but you’ve got your HSC exam on Tuesday’.”
It was an obstacle the teen was determined to overcome, and in the process of doing so, her senior football career began in a way she could never have imagined: with a flight to Uzbekistan separated by a layover in Dubai, where she sat her HSC exam in a bustling airport lounge.
“It was four days of on the phone, back and forth with teachers, the Department of Education, our team manager – everyone was trying to sort it out. But they did manage to get it sorted so my strength and conditioning coach at Sydney, who was a teacher, could supervise my exam in Dubai airport while we were there on a layover.
“We were in a lounge, where I set up at a table just sort of on the other side of the room to the rest of the girls, because they were all sleeping. It was very loud, they were doing construction inside the airport, so I was hearing that the whole time I was doing the test.
“But I managed to get it done in there, and then I was good to go. I finished school, finished all my exams, and I was able to just focus on playing over there. I’m in my second year at uni in Wollongong, studying exercise science and rehab.”
And so began the career of a highly-rated teenage talent who, just two months before her journey to Uzbekistan with the Sky Blues, was asked to choose between football and rugby league, having played both sports – and played them well – since she was a child growing up in Illawarra.
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Tallon-Henniker grew up in a rugby league household. Her grandfather played for the North Sydney Bears and Illawarra Steelers and from a young age, Tallon-Henniker played the game too. She juggled football and rugby league from the age of 11 and, just two months before venturing to Uzbekistan with Sydney FC, travelled to Papua New Guinea with the Australian Schoolgirls rugby league squad.
But while she was in PNG, Tallon-Henniker came to a realisation that confirmed her commitment to the world game.
“I’d always dreamed of being a Matilda more than a Jillaroo,” she said.
“That was always a bigger dream. Growing up, I did tend to favour football more purely because it was a higher level and because it was more of a challenge. Whereas in rugby league, I was just playing locally. I could afford to miss training or a game here and there, and that didn’t really matter. Playing football, I wanted to be at every game or I was going to fall behind.
“I definitely favoured football pretty much from the get-go, and that just sort of carried on all the way through to when I made the final decision.
“Two weeks into preseason with Sydney FC as a train-on player, I had to miss a week to go to Papua New Guinea with the Australian Schoolgirls rugby league team. And the whole time I was in Papua New Guinea, I was just missing training at Sydney. I wanted to be there. I was very jealous of everyone else there, and I just wanted to be back.
“The second I got back from Papua New Guinea, I knew my decision was made.
“Ante grabbed me and said: ‘I think it would be a smart decision for you to make a decision right now, so you can focus going forward on one sport’.
“I definitely will always wish that I could play both in an ideal world, but I’m happy and very content with the decision I made at the end.”
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Tallon-Henniker was promoted from a train-on player to a permanent squad member in February 2024 after an injury to Fiona Worts. If she had any doubts about her decision to prioritise football, those doubts were quickly removed by her blistering introduction to life in the Ninja A-League.
Her first league appearance was a Sydney Derby against Western Sydney Wanderers; she scored on debut in a 2-0 win. One year on from making her Ninja A-League bow, Tallon-Henniker has made 23 league appearances for Sydney and is a Ninja A-League Champion at the age of 19.
Looking back on her first season in Sky Blue, she reflects on the opportunity to learn off Matildas star Cortnee Vine, and test her skills against some of the best defenders in the country, as the most important aspect of her time at the club to date.
“I remember the first day I turned up and Cortnee came up to me and introduced herself, like I didn’t know who she was,” she said.
“I thought that was pretty crazy, like, this is sort of the life that I’m living now, and the players I’ve been watching for years are now my friends.
“Just at training, even just watching her, I just learned so much from her. Being able just to pick up stuff on the go was so valuable. And even being able to be marked at training by people like Kirsty Fenton and Tori Tumeth, who are great defenders, they don’t let many people past them on the weekend.
“Being able to learn by getting marked by them, it’s like nothing else compares to it. You can’t get that experience any other way. The intensity of training, the group of girls, the coaching staff, it’s all great. I don’t think there’s really any better environment in that regard. It’s been a great experience so far.”
Vine is one of Tallon-Henniker’s two Matildas idols; the other is Shellharbour native Caitlin Foord.
“She doesn’t live too far from me, so she’s sort of a local hero,” Tallon-Henniker said.
“I like to sort of play similarly to her, to be aggressive and attacking with speed, that sort of style. So I have tried to base a lot of how I play around her style, as well as Cortnee’s.”
Both Foord and Vine spent trophy-laden stints at Sydney FC before progressing into the Matildas squad, where they both became Australian icons at the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Tallon-Henniker hopes to follow in their footsteps – and has taken a significant stride toward that dream in recent months with her ascension into the Young Matildas squad.
Alex Epakis is the new head coach of Australia’s Under-20 international side and is providing Tallon-Henniker with opportunities to impress ahead of a huge year for the squad, with both the Under-20 Asian Cup and Under-20 World Cup on the 2026 calendar.
After impressing at the PacificAus Four Nations Tournament in February, Tallon-Henniker has been selected in Epakis’ 25-player squad for a domestic training camp during the March/April FIFA women’s international window.
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It’s an opportunity Tallon-Henniker is relishing – but believes should have come earlier in her Sydney career.
“I’d always been a little bit disappointed when I was doing things like making my A-League debut and I was scoring goals, but I still never had that Young Matildas cap or camp or anything under my belt,” she said.
“So I always did feel like something was missing in the last cycle, but to get selected straight away in the first camp of this cycle was it was amazing. I was just very happy and excited. I was a little bit nervous and didn’t know what was to come. But after the first camp with the staff, the environment, the girls, it was just another class and a different level.
“To go into another camp at the end of this week, I’m very excited just to see how much more I can keep building in confidence and as a player and building the relationships with the girls and the new coaching staff. I think we could really have a successful cycle with this group
“Putting on the jersey – the exact same jerseys that Matildas are wearing – was crazy. I see them wearing it on TV, and now I’m putting it on myself. It just shows it’s really not that far away now; it’s another step closer with the Young Matildas. It definitely is within reach. Just have to keep fighting hard, and hopefully one day I’m lucky to get there.
“I want to get to the (Under-20) World Cup, but just start with getting some success at the Asian Cup. I think we can make the final this time, try to go one better, and then hopefully from there we get some good success at the World Cup as well.
“The Asian Cup and World Cup for us happen to be in the same year as the senior Women’s Asian Cup, which I think is great, because there’d be the exposure from that. So if we’re following on from that, we could get some people watching and being interested in us.”
Before she reunites with the Young Matildas, Tallon-Henniker has the tantalising prospect of another Sydney Derby to look forward to on Friday night.
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Sydney FC travel to Marconi Stadium to take on the Wanderers and, after a recent resurgence, have a slim chance of reaching the finals with three games left to play.
Tallon-Henniker has played Western Sydney twice in the Ninja A-League and has scored in both games. Her most recent strike against the Wanderers was the decisive goal in a 1-0 win earlier this season.
“Wanderers, the derby – there’s nothing better, really,” she said.
“It’s definitely the game that you look forward to from the season, the start of the season.
“Pretty much every game from now on for us is just giving it all our all, like we’ve got to give our get three points and then see if we can get anything from there. But yeah, or none of the girls are giving up yet. It’s definitely been a hard season, but everyone’s still fighting and pushing to get a win every week, and this one’s just an extra special one.”
