Inside Aussie football’s greatest comeback story of 2024

Newcastle Jets star and CommBank Matildas defender Tash Prior has enjoyed a memorable 2024-25. The Australia international speaks to aleagues.com.au about her journey to this point.

It’s one of the great Australian football stories and comeback tales.

Rewind six years ago and a major concussion led to Tash Prior’s retirement from football aged just 21. From the outside, her career appeared over after a sixth concussion.

BUY TICKETS TO THE NINJA A-LEAGUE!

But the Newcastle Jets star never considered her football journey done; in fact, Prior always knew she would be back on the pitch.

So after returning briefly in 2021-22, the 27-year-old capped her incredible comeback with a CommBank Matildas debut last year, and she marked it with a goal.

Looking back at it now, that retirement gave Prior the “natural break” she needed at the time.

GAME-BY-GAME PREVIEW: What you need to know for Round 13 of the Ninja A-League

“It’s probably a bit blurry, but my reason probably for coming back is that I don’t think in my head it was ever like, I guess properly finished. I know I’d kind of hung up the boots, but I didn’t really feel ready to hang up the boots,” Prior told aleagues.com.au ahead of Saturday night’s clash with Canberra United.

“Being so young it’s not like the natural retirement age that you would typically kind of see. So I think in my head, even though it was a retirement, I always thought I would kind of come back at least for a season or two and just see how I felt and whether I enjoyed it, because that was a big thing for me.

“Finding the fun in football. I think when I turned 18-19, and it was like potentially getting called into the national team, that pressure kind of came quite early, and I don’t think I was ready for it. So the injury obviously happened, and it kind of gave me a natural break as well, even though it’s probably in a bit of a shitty way, it kind of gave me a bit of an out from that pressure, which I don’t think I was ready for.

“So obviously, stepping away from the sport I focus on my career outside of football and working, which I always felt pressured to kind of do as well, to make sure I didn’t just have football as my only source of what I was doing. I think now, coming back when I’m obviously a bit older, a bit more of a mature player, I feel it kind of goes to your point before, of dealing with that pressure.

“I think I’m older, and I’ve had experience outside of football, so I think I can cope kind of with that pressure better now.”

BUY TICKETS TO THE NINJA A-LEAGUE!

It was December 2018. While playing for Canberra United, Prior collided heavily with a Sydney FC opponent.

Prior was taken from the field on a stretcher before being taken to hospital as a precaution, where she was diagnosed with a concussion.

Prior had suffered five concussions before the major headknock more than six years ago but it was not until that fateful day that she started to take it more seriously. It “rattled” her.

“I literally have like black noise in my head,” Prior said of her mindset going into games having already sustained five concussions. “There’s nothing up there so I’m not playing, even back then, I don’t think I was playing cautious.

“Even the concussions that I’d had previously, before the big one, being 18-19, I knew I’d had them, but I don’t think I really attributed weight to them, until that kind of last one… none of them really hurt but that last one I properly felt that. I felt the repercussions after, ongoing symptoms.

“So I think pre-concussion, I didn’t really think about it, and then post, I got quite rattled after it. I was going with specialists, and they were telling me whether I wanted to play or not. I think that’s kind of when it became more serious, and that’s when I started to take the concussions more seriously after the fact, rather than before.”

BUY TICKETS TO THE NINJA A-LEAGUE!

Then after a couple of years away, Prior made her comeback to football, albeit briefly with Sydney FC in 2021-22.

In her own words, the comeback was premature. She wasn’t ready as she dipped in and out of the game.

But the turning point came in 2023. After watching the Matildas at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, it left her feeling one thing.

‘MY HEART IS HERE NOW’: A-Leagues cult hero set for life-changing moment 10 years in the making

“I just remember having serious FOMO (fear of missing out) of being like, this sucks being on this side of the fence and seeing everybody,” Prior recalled.

“It just looked like they were having fun, which is obviously something that having then worked for the best part of four or five years in a corporate job, it’s good, but it’s not fun and so I think I kind of got FOMO of the players, and decided to try and do both at the same time, which I’ve been lucky enough to do.”

There was no FOMO for Prior in December last year, when she made her Matildas debut against Brazil.

Prior was on the right side of the fence as she earned her first cap, reward for her stellar A-Leagues performances for the Jets. In her second international appearance, she scored her maiden goal.

Even after hanging up the boots six years ago, Prior always knew she could come back and crack the Matildas.

BUY TICKETS TO THE NINJA A-LEAGUE!

“It’s always something that’s been spoken about, (even when) I was like 18. I know there were murmurs of me getting called in (to the national team) and then obviously taking time off,” Prior reflected on her call-up.

“Even though I knew I was kind of out of football, I think I had a quiet confidence that if I pulled my socks up and and went back in properly, that it would take a season or two of good football to potentially get called back in.

“Then, the stars just kind of aligned with (interim head coach) Tom (Sermanni) coming in and having a pretty solid season at the Jets the year before. Obviously there’s noise around coming back from a pretty long injury or retirement. The hype that came around that, and then I guess the need for a centre-back coming in with (Clare Polkinghorne) Polks hanging up her boots. I think it just kind of all worked out timing wise, which is nice.

“I don’t remember getting the call, I think I got an email first up, and I think that was like, even though you know it’s kind of coming, it was still a bit of a surprise.

“When you’re checking your inbox and you normally just see bank statements and boring things then it was ‘you’re in the Matildas, congratulations’. It’s like, oh God I actually have to focus now.

“I wasn’t expecting it, but I was confident that it would come if I was playing well. Then when it came I was excited rather than nervous.”

BUY TICKETS TO THE NINJA A-LEAGUE!

And it all comes back to the influence of her father.

Spencer Prior was a defender for Norwich City, Leicester City, Derby County and Manchester City in the Premier League before finishing his career in Australia with the Jets.

Like her dad – an ex-Matildas assistant and Australia Under-20 head coach – Tash Prior is a centre-back and without him, she doesn’t think she would be playing.

She has not looked back since being given a pair of Adidas Copa Mundial boots by her father.

Image source: Football Australia

“I remember going and watching dad’s games,” she said. “We had a ritual with my granddad. We’d go and get a bagel and then go and watch my dad’s games. I remember I’d always wear his jersey and stuff. I just always thought it was so cool watching him.

“Even though he’s a guy, and they’re all a lot older than me, I remember being like, I want to be on that field. I just want to be playing with him.

“Obviously he transitioned into coaching and we would spend hours at the park, and he would literally not let me leave until I did like 10 good left foot clips, because I’m right footed and my left foot is basically useless.

“He’s such a big part of why I’m playing and why I kind of keep playing, wanting him to be proud of my journey and hopefully now maintaining spot in the Matildas. I know that would make him pretty proud. It feels really special to be able to do it with him in my life.”

Tash Prior added: “I remember being like seven or eight, watching dad’s football and thinking I could go out and run with full grown men who are like professional footballers.

“I’ve always been confident, even from a really young age. From the age of eight or nine, I always thought (about) national team stuff. It was always something I’d thought of not aimed for, but always something that was in the back of my mind. All of a sudden, you’re 12-13, and I remember training on with Sydney a couple times, and then making Institute. So I always thought it would be like in my cards, but it was just a matter of when.”

It has been almost two months since Prior’s Matildas bow.

The focus has now switched to Newcastle Jets and embracing the challenge of maintaining the level of performance that led to her national team call-up with more attention on Prior.

BUY TICKETS TO THE NINJA A-LEAGUE!

“You want to strive to stay in the team and things like that, but that initial kind of call in has kind of already come,” she said. “So then I think it’s a matter of challenging yourself to to either keep the same level or increase the level that you’re playing at.

“I think trying to drive the team to live up to that as well has been challenging. But we’re only halfway through the season and we’re probably not doing as good as we would like to at this point in the season.

“Hopefully it can only get better. There’s obviously pressure now to keep playing well and to maybe do better than I was before. So just trying to put that into practice.”

As Prior said, the Jets’ season has not gone according to plan so far.

After an historic run to the 2023-24 Semi-Finals, Newcastle find themselves 10th in the standings and eight points adrift of the top six.

BUY TICKETS TO THE NINJA A-LEAGUE!

“We sat down as a team last week,” Prior revealed. “It was kind of the halfway mark of the season and we laid out some goals, whether it’s personally or as a team. I think we’ve got a set amount of games that we’d like to win, and that we see kind of as our threshold to making the top six.

“I think taking each game. Obviously big picture, we’d like to make finals, but that kind of comes down to game by game. So having a plan for each game, whether we’re going for the win or the draw, I guess that’s kind of how we’re tackling coming like the position that we are at the moment.

“I think we started the season relatively strong in terms of, I don’t know whether we were winning or drawing or whatever it was, but I think we were playing nice with football, like the first couple of games, and so trying to get back to that.

“I think we’ve kind of come to the point where we’d rather, even if we lose, we’d rather still play the style of football that we want to play, rather than not playing nice football.”