November 11, 2004 by Greg Everett | View Comments (7)
November 10th, 2004 will go down in the history books as the day that two secondary schools from the Northern Hemisphere played each other in a game of Australian Football with school pride on the line for the first time ever.
The Etobicoke Kangaroos Australian Football Club based in Toronto had, as part of their junior development program, been conducting Australian Football clinics at both the St Clements (SCS) and Bishops Strachan (BSS) girls schools for three weeks.
After working on their skills and game sense for many hours under the guidance of the Kangaroos junior development coaches, Greg Everett, Simon Wilson, Clayton Holmes and Rob Lennox, the schools selected their top 15 players to get ready for the game which was played under fantastic fall skies of blue.
The BSS girls, as ground host, selected the jerseys of the Etobicoke Kangaroos while SCS wore the jerseys of the former Brampton Wolverines.
With Rob “Rocket” Lennox acting as umpire in his farewell game before returning to Australia, the game got under way at a cracking pace with both teams trying to adjust to the pace from practices to playing and from no pressure to heaps of pressure.
Both team settled down their nerves and found that the new fast paced game they had discovered was in fact a lot of fun and full of excitement.
With there skills starting to shine through, the ball went from end to end as each team tried break down the other's defence. Marks were being taken all around the ground. As the game went on, the girls started the to understand the concept of play-on footy and moved the ball with ease, with flowing handballs and silky smooth kicking games.
In the end it was SCS who won the game by five points. Had it not been for the diminishing light, a fast finishing BSS might have been able to pull out an upset.
Congratulations to all girls from both teams for their efforts at practice and during the game. It is hoped that this is the start of bigger and better things for the Etobicoke Kangaroos AFC junior development program.
Final Score
St. Clements (3.7.25) def. Bishop Strachan (3.2.20)
St. Clements Goals
Liana Wong 2, Zahara Jamani 1
Bishop Strachan Goals
Robyn Short 2, Abbey Greenbloom 1
St. Clements Best
Zahara Jamani, Becky Carueth, Liana Wong, Sarah Vinette
Bishop Strachan Best
Kasey McKenzie, Ali Dennis, Robyn Short, Abbey Greenbloom
Both teams will be trying play each other again with Havergal Girls College also keen to play after having a week of clinics.
Special thanks to Linda Leckie of BSS and Kelly Pace and Beth Crocker of SCS for helping get this together and helping to make a vision of school football start to come true.
Comments (7)
Great job ladies! It is great to see more people taking an active interest in the greatest sport on earth - aussie rules!
it is with interest i read your report on the girls playing australian football(footy as we say downunder).I think its fantastic that this took place and think more schools should get involved in learning and playing the game.Hopefully it will help the youth of canada realise that theres a great game out there,thats a lot of fun to play.And hopefully the AFL will lobby to have more games on tv in the future,to allow youngsters to have there favourite teams and players,just as well all do here in australia and you guys no doubt do in regards to the NHL.Im West Coast Eagles fan,and it would be great to have a player of the calibre of someone like Chris Judd,come all the way from Canada to come and play for the eagles.As it is at the moment,i take particular note of Tadgh Kennelly whenever he plays,and the irishman is doing himself,ireland and the sydney swans proud and shown that players from overseas have got the abilty to play at the highest level.However i believe the kids have to start young(like 7 or 8 years old like they do here),because the later you take up the game the game the more difficult it is to pick up.Therefore taking it to the schools is very important.To all the people in north america promoting and coaching the game,well done.Footy truly is the the greatest game.If anyone reading this gets the chance to come to australia,you have to go see an AFL game.There is nothing like it on earth.The thrill of the crowd,the atmosphere is unbelievable.well thats all for now,i will continue to monitor this site and check via this site how the game is progressing.sincerest regards,jim johnson from Perth,Australia
A sport worthy of becoming truly international. Canada should adopt it as their second national sport (behind hockey of course)
i think its great too i got the same things as him if afl becomes a worldwide sporet it would be great for the aussies to beat all the other teams only joking its great that its becoming more popular GO THE EAGLES
wow, this is great the girls are getting out there having a go at aussie rules football
it a great game, and there is so much girls intrest here too
your quite priveldge to hav an AFL canada!
Go the North melbourne Kangaroos
G'Day
We would like to get in contact and start a sister club with the Under 18 youth Girls eaglehawk Football team.
We play on Sundays and it would be good for the girls to get in contact with each other.
It is great that you are all playing aussie rules. keep on kicking and have fun.
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