Rising OzTag star Nathalia Taylor will head to Ireland on Saturday chasing World Cup supremacy, and she'll be hoping for more luck than her father Shannan Taylor on his lone journey to the emerald isle.
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A veteran of 65 pro fights - most notably a challenge to then No. 1 pound-for-pound king Shane Mosely in 2001 - a prime 'Bulli Blaster' headed to Ireland in 1996 14-0 and fresh off a knockout of Livingstone Bramble to take on American Corey Johnson.
He left a professional ring for the first time without victory following a controversial draw after 10 rounds.
"It was a good fight but I knew I'd won," Taylor recalls.
"I knocked him down in the last round and I went over and said 'I want a rematch' and Corey said 'you won that fight Shannan'.
His trainer was Al Blue (Alvin Lewis) who fought Muhammad Ali. He came up and said 'you're the closest thing I've seen to Roberta Juran'. That was a fair rap."
Taylor never got his rematch, Johnson was subsequently suffered a fourth-round KO defeat to Kostya Tszyu in his next bout.
Now daughter Nathalia is headed for Ireland with sights set on breaking the family's Irish duck as part of the Australian Indigenous OzTag team.
While she hasn't pulled on the gloves, and she's "not about to any time soon" she has emerged as a star in her sport of choice.
Having competed at various state and national championships, Nathalia was selected as part of the women's under 21s AIO team for the upcoming ITF World Cup at the University of Limerick starting next week.
It's the first time the event has been held in the Northern Hemisphere, with the previous event held in Coffs Harbour in 2018.
Nathalia is part of a 74-strong Indigenous team across various age groups that will compete in the Cup against teams from more than 20 countries.
"I started playing OzTag when I was 10 or 11," Nathalia said.
"I've always played [rugby] league and league-tag for pretty much my whole life. I had some friends who played at a state level and just said 'do you want to come join'
"It pretty much stemmed from there. I've played a billion state cups and nationals, I've got nationals in October this year. I got selected from there to play Battle of the Nations in Queensland in November [last year] for the World Cup team to go to Ireland.
"It's pretty exciting because when I was little I really didn't think could take me anywhere and it's a pretty big achievement to be able to go across the world and follow Dad's footsteps and play sport on that world stage."
It's a vocation occupying most of her time and, while she's been no stranger to boxing gyms throughout her life, she's not planning a shift to squared circle.
"I did when I was little but I haven't really thought about, it's more my brother's thing she said."
It's a position Dad's more than happy with.
"She does throw them all right, but I'm just really proud of her and what she's doing," Shannan said.
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Mitch Jennings
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
Sports writer. Sport is my passion, rugby league my first love.
