The 2011 season for the Future Stars program - which is run by the Hyundai Brisbane Lions Academy in conjunction with AFL Queensland - officially concluded last Friday night following a high-standard South-East Queensland carnival played at Giffin Park, Coorparoo.
Future Stars is the entry level program of the Lions Academy and is designed to allow boys that haven’t played football with a junior AFL club the opportunity to experience a short development training program, which culminates in a regional carnival night of games.
The initial Sunshine Coast nomination process saw our Game Development staff and teachers nominate some 70 boys as potential “Future Stars” squad members. The nominated boys are 12/13 years of age who haven’t played club AFL but participated in school competitions or have been referred to us as quality young athletes.
From this initial squad a good 30 boys with stars in their eyes participated in the program. Most of our training period after a warm up and some sharp game skill drills saw the boys in ‘match play’ for the bulk of each session - team v team and their chance to get right amongst the action.
AFLQ Sunshine Coast Development Officer, Dayne Frew was the guiding light to the program.
“The boys as a group from different areas of the coast bonded very well, they thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company,” Frew said.
“Whilst wanting to sharpen their AFL skills they just wanted to get out and enjoy playing the game.”
“They were a great bunch of young men with plenty of individual character and passion, who wanted to improve their game sense and skills within what in the main is a foreign game to this group.”
On the night of carnival play, when it is all simply about participation and show casing your skills our teams performed well without the scoreboard as the define reason. During the night we certainly witnessed some quality players from other regions, in particular the Darling Downs Red team who the White SC team struck second game were of high class.
We wish all the SC boys who participated all the best for future pursuits and in a word our doors are happily open if these boys should choose to play club AFL in season 2012.
Thanks to the Brisbane Lions Academy for hosting the program. Thanks to the SC school teachers who supported the program, that if nothing else gave these 22 young men who headed to Brisbane on Friday 11th quality opportunity to participate in a sporting program of no cost and no strings attached. Well done to our AFLQ staff in Dayne, Briggsy, Brad, AB and PT who happily gave of their time to support this program.
The five Sunshine Coast boys who will form part of 2012 Future Stars program are as follows (players region and school are denoted in brackets):
Troy Bramham (Sun. Coast, Pacific Paradise)
Trent Davison (Sun. Coast, Suncoast Grammar)
Dom Chamberlin (Sun. Coast, Stella Maris)
Jack Wright (Sun. Coast, Stella Maris)
Ethan Wikaira (Sun. Coast, Noosaville)
Players that have been selected in each of the Hyundai Lions Academy groups will go on to participate in a series of training sessions and camps throughout 2012 to further develop their AFL skills and game knowledge.
Any players wanting to learn more about playing AFL for a junior club in 2012 can visit www.playafl.com.au for more information on local clubs in your area.
Last Modified on 02/02/2012 13:04