By JARROD POTTER
EARNING her place among a group of Australia’s best junior women’s footballers is Beaconsfield Junior Football Club rising star Karly Tapner – who participated in an Australian tour to New Zealand last week.
Tapner, 16, from Cranbourne, has been a regular feature in Victorian Youth Girls representative squads in recent times and added the next big honour to her football CV – selected to represent Australia as part of the AFL’s High Performance Program.
She was voted into a select group of the 12 best Youth Girls players in the country – selected from a 24-person squad.
“Under-16 carnival last year – the schoolgirls – and they selected us from that,” Tapner said.
“In February at the start of the year, there were 24 girls that were put together for a week and out of all the girls – everyone had to vote on certain aspects – got to vote out of five and whoever was voted in the top 12 got to go away on the trip.
“I think it’s really good (that she was voted in) – think it shows they look up to you as much as you look up to them and what you’re trying to do, you’re succeeding and making people feel comfortable, helping them out and trying to be a good leader.”
The High Performance program toured New Zealand recently – facing the best of New Zealand’s emerging crop of young female footballers – the Under-18 New Zealand Kahus – in a series of matches helped to push the standard of female football up.
While the standard wasn’t quite there at first, Tapner said the New Zealanders rose in skill throughout the rest of the series and will benefit from the exposure to Australia’s best junior female footballers.
“We trained with them a few times – the first two days we were there we trained with them for a few hour sessions,” Tapner said.
“At the start they were a bit rusty, they were good at training but the first game they didn’t really know what to do.
“The next game we mixed it up and mixed teams and they learned a lot from that and in the last game they were heaps better and their pressure was up – with their tackling – and it was good overall.”
Getting to represent Australia was a thrill for Tapner and to help spread the message of Youth Girls football and Australian football in general in a neighbouring country was a great honour.
“It was pretty good – got a bit of a pump up speech every game to remind us of what we are doing so that was pretty inspiring,” Tapner said.
“It just felt good to be able to represent your country, especially in another country where you’re developing the game so you’re an ambassador as well as just playing.”
It’s back to pre-season business for Tapner now – set to train with the Berwick Women’s Football Club and finish up her Youth Girls career with Beaconsfield – hopefully adding another premiership to their 2013 triumph over Cranbourne.
Tapner wanted to thank AFL Youth Girls – especially Chyloe Kurdas and Alicia Eva – as well as school coach Brett Alexander, best mate Ellie Blackburn and her parents.
“Like to thank Chyloe Kurdas and Alicia Eva for all the hope they’ve given me over the last year and a bit and my parents for paying for everything,” Tapner said.
“Brett Alexander – he’s put in a lot of work with me over summer and Ellie for being a really good inspiration and helping with everything with my footy.”
