AFL continues to support Clontarf Foundation

AFL staff and Southern Cross University (SCU) students threw their support behind the Clontarf Foundation’s recent Kings of the North Coast Basketball tournament.

The tournament brought together teams from the Clontarf Academies at South Grafton High, Orara High (Coffs Harbour), Kempsey High, Melville High (Kempsey), Hastings Secondary College (Port Macquarie), Chatham High (Taree), and Oxley High (Tamworth).

The AFL and SCU personnel supported the day by conducting draft style testing of all players whilst they had a bye between matches. The testing included a 20m sprint, vertical jump, and Buckley kicking test which measures a player’s ability to hit a target over various distances and with both feet.

Although most of the Basketball participants have never played AFL they displayed outstanding athleticism and a real potential to succeed at our sport.

The Basketball tournament was won by Chatham Academy, featuring Port Magpie Jaxon Mawson Gulliford. Chatham defeated Orara Academy in the final, with Sawtell Saints Mal and Jaymus Troutman featuring prominently in the Orara team.

Other local footy players who were involved on the day included Jayden Kennedy, Byron Quinlan, Preston Kelly, and Tyriek Morris from the Macleay Valley Eagles.

The Clontarf Foundation exists to improve the education, discipline, life skills, self-esteem and employment prospects of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and by doing so equips them to participate meaningfully in society. The vehicle for achieving this outcome is football. The Foundation uses the existing passion that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boys have for football to attract them into school and keep them there.

The Clontarf Foundation was founded in the year 2000 by Gerard Neesham who was the inaugural coach of the Fremantle Dockers in the AFL.