Touchdown Photography

This week's Legend in the WOMEN IN SPORT SPOTLIGHT SERIES 🔥❣️🏈
JESS DAVY💯
Here's her amazing story...

"My sporting journey didn’t begin with AFL — it began on the soccer field. But when I made the switch in 2015 to Australian Rules Football, everything changed.
In my very first season at the Moreton Bay Lions, we claimed a premiership. My second year playing and I was honoured to win the League Best & Fairest award.
Fast forward a few years.

In 2019, I welcomed my first son into the world, followed quickly by my second in 2020. Motherhood shifted everything — but it didn’t end my football journey. I returned to AFL just three months postpartum, determined to prove that women can be both athletes and mums.
In 2022 we were back to a Grand final appearance where we lost by 2 points.
Another Grand final appearance in 2023, I had the privilege of captaining Moreton Bay to its second premiership. Leading the group through that season was incredibly special — and to again win the League Best & Fairest made it even more meaningful.Entering my 30s, I decided to challenge myself at the next level. In 2024, I travelled to join the Aspley Hornets in the QAFLW competition. It was a huge step, but one I embraced fully. That season, I was selected in the Queensland State Team, representing the state against Tasmania — an experience I’ll never forget.
In 2025, when Moreton Bay was promoted into the QAFLW, I returned home to captain the club’s first-ever state league women’s side. It was a year full of learning curves, leading a young and talented group into a higher level of competition. I was fortunate to once again earn selection in the Queensland representative team and travel to Tasmania to compete.
To cap off 2025, I was honoured to receive Goal of the Year and be named Vice Captain in the QAFLW Team of the Year — recognition that reflected not just individual moments, but the collective growth of our group.Now in 2026, I step into a new chapter as Player/Co-Coach of the Moreton Bay Lions.
Eleven years in the game.
Two premierships as a player.
Three League Division 1 Best & Fairest awards.
State representative honours.
Goal of the Year.
Team of the Year (Vice Captain).
Captaincy.
Motherhood.
And now leadership from both on and off the field.
But beyond the medals and milestones, football has given me something even greater — lifelong friendships. Teammates who have become family. People who have supported me through pregnancies, injuries, wins, losses and everything in between.
Even more special, my two boys have quite literally grown up on the sidelines of the football field. From babies in the pram at training to cheering from the boundary line on game day — footy has always been part of their world. Now they’re pulling on their own boots and participating in Auskick, beginning their own journey. That full-circle moment means more than any medal ever could.

My ideal advice to anyone❤️"

Moreton Bay Lions
AFL Queensland
AFL
AFL Women's

🔥LEGENDS OF AUSSIE GRIDIRON🔥
"JUSTIN "Star80" Fernley"

Back in 1982, a skinny kid with breathing problems was gifted a gridiron ball by his big brother. That ball was the featured element of many ‘touch’ gridiron games during school lunch breaks for the next couple of years. A passing interest in the game, and an admiration for the spectacle and athleticism of the NFL were the first sparks of a career that would culminate in the induction of Justin Fernley aka ‘Star80’ into the Gridiron Qld ‘Hall of Fame’ in 2017.
Fast forward to 1985 and 19 year old Justin and that big brother (Peter) turned up at a gathering of like-minded people to explore the possibility of developing a gridiron competition in SE Qld. Three teams were formed that day, but Justin and Peter felt the comp would be better served having four teams. So with very little coaching experience and their knowledge of gridiron gleaned from watching NFL games, they decided they could start their own team, and thus the ‘Centurions’ was born.
1986 was a year of decisions for Justin – continue playing Rugby League, the game he had grown up supporting but had only just started playing the year before, and that his father had played before polio ended his career (and was still fanatical about); or devote his time to the developing QGFL competition. As a lean fella with speed and a handy step, the prospect of not getting his head busted up by lazy arm swinging forwards, and Gridiron’s greatly reduced aerobic requirements (that suited a mouth breather with the lung capacity of an 80 year old), made the choice an easy one in the end.
After ‘fumbling and bumbling’ their way through four seasons; with Justin coaching the offensive and defensive backfields, collaborating with Peter on offensive and defensive plays and structures, taking care of team funds and registrations, managing & at times making equipment, looking after game day management, videoing other games, officiating other games, and doing and learning a lot about people management and coaching; these 2 Aussie guys guided the Centurions to their first and only Sunbowl win in 1988. Justin was the MVP of that game and the recipient of many ‘player of the round’ awards over the course of the season.
Justin was also looking after League registrations that year and continued to be very involved with numerous fund raising and promotional activities with the QGFL. After coming close to pulling off a massive upset in the 1990 Sunbowl, the 1991 season brought a shortage of players for the Centurions, and the competition’s best running back and a fixture in the Qld team took a year off playing to officiate and assist with administration of the league.

Justin returned to the gridiron with the Centurions in 1992 and continued his playing & administrative work with the team until it folded following the 1996 season. After what was to be the first ‘fun and responsibility free season’ with the Gold Coast Stingrays in 1997, his working career saw him move to the Bundaberg region, and what he thought would be his retirement from Gridiron at age 31.
After spending the next 13 years dabbling in the local Rugby Union and Rugby League comps, but never really getting the buzz that Gridiron provided; he decided that although he wouldn’t be able to attend team training sessions, a couple more low-key seasons of turning up on a saturday and playing might be doable. So, in 2010 a return to the Stingrays transpired and after dipping his toes back in that season, he found that he still had the ability to compete at a level that he aspired to. The next season saw him at the Sunshine Coast Spartans, playing anywhere in the offensive and defensive backfields, and ultimately being awarded the team MVP for the season.
2013 saw Justin re-unite with his Centurions’ team-mate Phil Crick, who was now coaching at the Bears. It was the end of a tough unplanned 2014 season with the Bruins that Justin’s 48 year old body decided it had had enough, so his third retirement from playing was to be a definite. His work with the Gridiron Qld ‘Ghosts of Gridiron’, that he was instrumental in establishing in 2011, continues to maintain Justin’s contribution to American Football Queensland.


American Football QLD
American Football Australia
Centurions Gridiron
NFL Justin Fernley