Girls – want to try AFL? Here’s your chance!

AFL is the fastest growing sport across the country amongst girls, and North Coast is riding the crest of that wave.

Plans are underway to further grow the Youth Girls space which has gone from strength to strength on the North Coast in the past four years. A program will be conducted throughout March for girls born from 2006 to 2009 (inclusive), starting with skill development and progressing to playing games against other similarly experienced players.

Matt Crawley, AFL NSW/ACT Development Manager, said that girls are embracing the code locally. “As we’ve added Youth Girls and Women’s competitions we’ve seen a dramatic increase in retention of girls in our club Auskick programs with more of these girls then transitioning to club footy and into the female pathway.

“One of the goals of this program is to further build the base of girls wanting to play footy so that we can introduce a second Youth Girls dedicated age group in 2021 and allow participants to play with and against girls at younger ages.”

Sessions will be run in Grafton, Woolgoolga, Coffs Harbour, Sawtell, Bellingen, Nambucca, South West Rocks, Kempsey, Port Macquarie, and Taree. The first of these sessions will be on Sunday 1 March.

“Girls will be able to come along to give footy a go in a no pressure environment where all sessions will be run by experienced female staff,” Crawley said.

“We’d love to find another Georgia Breward or Bri McFarlane who started their footy on the North Coast and are now in the AFLW system. We’re every bit as keen to find girls who want to play club footy and progress through a Youth Girls pathway into local Senior clubs.”

For more information on the Youth Girls program, including dates, times, and venues, please contact either Matt Crawley (North Coast) on 0431 877 173 or matthew.crawley@afl.com.au, or James Moir (Mid North Coast) on 0421 330 124 or james.moir@afl.com.au.