By JARROD POTTER
FROM Morwell to Mornington, Benalla to Beaconsfield, the Youth Girls Academy Challenge has shown what is possible across the football landscape.
Adapting the regional carnivals from previous years into one cohesive competition, run across February and March, the results are in for the expansion of girls’ football.
The Youth Girls Academy Challenge culminated on Monday afternoon, as Dandenong defeated Sandringham in the inaugural grand final, but there was more on the line with this competition than just who raised the cup.
The first wave of a true Academy-based competition has emphatically stated a lot about female football in Victoria.
They’re keen; most of the girls who have participated in the Youth Girls Academy Challenge have been in training since October or before and barely taken any break after their 2015 local club seasons.
It shows the game is moving in the right direction as numbers swell and the skill level has improved dramatically over the years.
And the greatest strength? These young women are united as one across the competition and celebrate as one – win, loss or draw – and want growth and development in the ranks just as much as team glory.
Whether they run the boundaries, time-keep or in many instances return to help coach their sides, the Challenge is about building up what the girls can achieve on and off the park.
AFL Victoria female development manager Chyloe Kurdas was thrilled with the competition’s first run, especially seeing the eight sides take to Frankston Park on Monday to cap off the season.
“In the grand final yesterday when the anthem was on – there was a moment of gratitude where I stood there and was really grateful for the contributions of everyone throughout the last eight to nine years,” Kurdas said. “As I emphasised with the girls and families, I was really proud of their commitment.
“Really pleased to see the evolution taking place and it’s a real reflection of the work that people in community football leagues are building.”
In a little over a decade, the girls’ game has gone from its first steps in local competitions all the way to setting a proper path for female footballers to stride towards the AFL.
“It’s really exciting but there’s still plenty of work to go through with the Women’s AFL,” Kurdas said. “But now we can offer girls a legitimate pathway from the time they’re five to 55 to play the game and that’s certainly something that wasn’t available when I was a little girl and not that long ago even.”
It’s not just families and friends of the participants getting involved either, the renewed efforts of the TAC Cup clubs and the wider community to become active within the female football space is something really important for the Youth Girls competitions.
“The involvement of the TAC Cup clubs – they’re really starting to embrace the female component of their programs,” Kurdas said. “Mark Wheeler getting the first piece of silverware at Shepley and we’re really proud of the group of people there and throughout the competition with the TAC Cup clubs.
There are hopes that Eastern Ranges, Northern Knights or Oakleigh Chargers are able to join the Challenge in 2017 and make the competition swell into a TAC Cup-style format in years to come.
As the players now return to local competitions – with the Dandenong contingent evenly split between the South East Juniors, Mornington Peninsula and Frankston District competitions – the hope is they will cultivate and inspire the next generation of local players to step up to the state-wide Under 18s competition and keep the local leagues strong.
“There’s a great importance in growing club footy,” Kurdas said. “The Academy program is getting to a point where we can play a high performance program and that comes down to the work of SEJ, FDJFL and MPNFL and everyone else across the state.
“The work down there is a credit to those leagues with the results – real indicator of the depth of talent down here as the three leagues feeding into the Dandenong team … helps to boost the talent.”
There will be women drafted from this competition into the inaugural Women’s AFL – there’s no doubt about it that the likes of Katherine Smith (Sandringham) and Georgia Walker (Dandenong) among others will step straight from the Academy into the top echelon in this country.
That’s what a good pathway can achieve and it’s something the boys’ game has understood for a quarter of a century.
Here’s hoping the Challenge and other efforts helps expand the path for the girls too.
