The Inverell Auskick Centre along with Inverell Saints AFL club and McDonalds Inverell, are staging an AFL 9’s Gala day for primary schools on Friday 5th September at the Inverell Sports Complex. The response from local schools has been overwhelming with 28 teams entered from seven schools, with a total number of children playing being approximately 340. The schools will be competing to be the inaugural “2014 McDonalds Inverell AFL 9’s champions” in two divisions, Junior Primary (yrs 3&4) and Senior Primary (yrs 5&6).
Thanks to McDonalds, the schools competing include Gum Flat, Gilgai, Tingha, Glenn Ines, Inverell Public, Ross Hill and Holy Trinity. Each school will receive an AFL resource pack containing a high quality NAB Auskick trolley bag, set of hurdles, agility ladders, agility poles, set of portable goal posts, tag belts and a set of AFL Footballs. These resource kits will enable the schools to provide AFL as part each school’s sports program and create interest and enthusiasm for AFL at the “grass roots” level.
The NSW/ACT AFL has donated a set of AFL jumpers, which are to be presented to the winning school in each division. It is envisaged that the provision of these jerseys will encourage further interest in inter-school competitions such as the state-wide Paul Kelly Cup.
AFL 9’s is a non-contact AFL game with modified rules, similar in concept to touch football. Former Inverell Saints president and current Inverell Auskick Centre Coach Gerry Taveira said “AFL’9s is a fast and fun game and for a lot of the kids it will be their first introduction to AFL as a sport. I would encourage folks to come along to the complex to see the children show some amazing skills and support the children”.
It is hoped that the 2014 McDonalds AFL 9’s Gala Day will be the pre-cursor to a fully pledged inter-school AFL 9’s competition between the primary schools in our area, starting in 2015. This then has the potential to follow through into the high schools and into a much wider competition format than just the local area.
There will be four pools of teams in each division, with the winners of each pool going through to the finals. The first pool games will kick off at 10am and the finals will start at 12.40pm. The Auskick committee will be running a canteen on the day with limited hot food and drinks available.
All enquiries should be directed to Jon Cox 0418 463 206 or Warwick Bedford 0414 650 837
Last Modified on 02/09/2014 18:13