OAKLEIGH Chargers made the trip to Morwell Recreation Reserve count on Saturday, booting 10 of the first 12 goals on their way to a 41-point win over Gippsland Power, 10.6 (66) to 3.7 (25), in Round 20 of the Talent League Girls.

Half of those goals belonged to Bailee Martin, who finished with 15 disposals, six marks and five goals in a performance that is the benchmark she usually sets, but no less impressive. It included two goals inside the opening four minutes to a five-goal afternoon while looking that class above.

BACKGROUND

Name: Bailee Martin
Height: 176cm
DOB: 03/09/2008
Position: Tall Forward
Clubs: Oakleigh Chargers / East Malvern Knights

The most prolific goalkicker the 2026 AFLW Draft crop has to offer, Martin has 70 goals from 24 Talent League Girls games, and the bulk of them came in a bottom-age season. She kicked 43 majors from 10 matches in 2025, opening with a record-equalling nine-goal haul against Northern Knights and going until the preliminary final before an opponent held her to fewer than three majors.

That form carried into the representative arena. A bottom-age All-Australian in 2025 after a seven-goal game against Vic Country, Martin repeated the feat in 2026, finishing the AFL Women’s Under 18 Championships as the carnival’s leading goalkicker with 12 majors from just three games and earning the full-forward berth in the All-Australian side. She managed that despite missing the title-deciding clash with eventual champion South Australia through illness, and capped the campaign with seven goals from 19 disposals and four marks in the Round 5 loss to Vic Country at Shepley Oval.

The 2026 Talent League season has been the stop-start part of the story. Injury has restricted her to a handful of appearances for the Chargers, which means every outing carries a little more weight than it otherwise might, and every one has delivered. She combined with Cate Deayton for 9.5 in the Round 17 demolition of Geelong Falcons, and Round 20 was the next instalment.

An AFLW National Academy member, Martin’s father Ashleigh spent time on North Melbourne’s reserves list without breaking through for a senior game – one match short of making his daughter a Kangaroos father-daughter prospect. Martin’s kicking, reading of the play and football IQ are among her strengths, while she has been working on her endurance and tackle pressure, while modelling her game on Carlton’s Poppy Scholz.

PLAYER FOCUS

Stats vs. Gippsland Power, Round 20: 15 disposals (80 per cent disposal efficiency), 6 marks (3 contested), 1 tackle, 1 inside 50, 5 goals.

QUARTER ONE

It took a minute. Martin led hard into the pocket, marked cleanly and then snapped around her body from the boundary side for the opening goal of the afternoon, a piece of finishing that showed her elite goal sense and how comfortable she is when the ball is in her hands.

Three minutes later she had her second. Martin read the ball in flight superbly to take the mark 15 metres out directly in front, and the set shot was a formality. Two goals in four minutes, and Gippsland already had the problem the Power knew it would have.

The best of the term arrived in the 12th minute, and it did not add to her tally. With the game there to be taken and two goals already banked, Martin instead picked out Deayton with an outside-of-the-boot kick from 35 metres, pinpoint to a teammate in a better position. It was the most instructive act of her day, and the one that spoke loudest to answer the question whether the competition’s most dangerous forward can be the one who creates rather than the one who finishes.

QUARTER TWO

The opening minute of the second term was more of the same from the pick one contender as Martin led out to 25 metres, jumped early and clunked the mark, converting the set shot from a slight angle for her third.

Her fourth, four minutes later, came from a different kind of contest again. She floated back with the flight and held the mark while off balance, a genuinely difficult take, then slotted the set shot from 35 metres out straight in front. Four goals by the main break from an economical afternoon, and three of her marks by that stage had come under contest.

QUARTER THREE

The third quarter was the one that showed the rest of the game, and it began a long way from goal. In the 11th minute Martin pushed up the ground to mark in the middle, then used the kick to open up the angle for a move that went end to end and finished with a goal to Scarlett Bown. For a player whose reputation is built inside 50, the willingness to leave it and impact the chain 100 metres away was worth noting.

Not long after, Martin was awarded a free kick at half-forward and she went short with a lovely chip to a teammate who could not hold the mark. A quick handball on the wing under pressure a little later was clean, and kept a contest alive that could easily have been locked up.

Her fifth goal came in the final minute of the premiership quarter, and it was really showed her penetrating boot. She led out to mark at 40 metres and converted from a slight angle, finishing the term with the bag complete and the game long since decided.

QUARTER FOUR

The final term was where the ledger balanced out. In the fourth minute she gathered and gave off quick hands, then worked back towards goal, won the ball, handballed, won it back and got a snap away under pressure that could not find enough penetration to trouble the goals.

Two minutes later she was pinged for holding the ball in the forward pocket by Kira Wilson, and in the seventh minute an attempted sliding mark deep inside 50 bounced away from her. Neither moment cost Oakleigh anything on the scoreboard, but in a quarter where the supply had dried up and the contest had gone, they were the passages that told you where the next layer of her game sits.

SUMMARY

Five goals from 15 disposals at 80 per cent efficiency is a return that speaks for itself, but the ratio is the real story. Martin needed only six marks to kick five goals, three of those marks were contested, and she was not required to be involved in the general play to influence the result. In a game where Oakleigh had 10 of the first 12 goals, she was the single biggest reason the contest was over before half-time.

Martin’s ability to kick her goals from all manner of angles, distances and situations remains the difference between her and other forwards. The way her accuracy has improved in season 2026 is noticeable, and she is also opening up her field of view to hit those passes to teammates in better positions and juggling the weight of expectation with a team-first attitude perfectly.

Martin is an exciting player of the future who will be a key foundation for a club that is searching for a tall target inside 50. With a great set of hands, powerful kick and footy IQ and forward craft off the charts, there is no doubt the Oakleigh Chargers prospect is a long-term player at the elite level.