“I don’t think there’s ever been an AFL secondary schools day ever, in the region,” area development officer (program leader) Sonia Martin said. She said it was a fairly new sport for the north west.

“Some of them, they’ve never even watched a full game of AFL on the tv before, so it’s a big learning curve for a lot of them.”

Seventeen teams from Inverell, Uralla, Armidale and Tamworth braved the steamy heat for a full day of AFL. Spread out over three fields in the Inverell Sporting Complex, each played several friendly games from 9.45am-2.45pm.

Moree Secondary College’s Corey Briggs-Dates, Adrian Smith, Izayah Swan, Wyatt Roberts, Jade Porter and Rhys Smith joined with Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School’s senior squad to create a combined north west team. 

They played five of their six games back to back, even volunteering to help out Inverell’s Macintyre High School team early in the day.

Teacher Lyle Burdekin said the group did well overall, and it was unfortunate to see them knocked out in the semi finals. He said Roberts, Porter and Smith were the stand out players on the day. 

Martin said the day was about introducing the sport to the region.

“This is like a come and experience AFL – give it a go,” she said.

“That’s why we’ve been flexible with combining teams and the umpires aren’t just strictly umpires, they’re also explaining some rules as they go along when the kids don’t know them.”

Although Moree and Glen Innes’ girls teams had to pull out, Martin was pleased to see four teams playing on the day. 

“When we started talking about this then people went ‘girls AFL?’ like ‘yeah, girls AFL!’. So we’ve now got four teams of about 60 girls out there running around. It’s awesome,” she said.

To combat the heat, Martin said the players made sure to keep their fluids up, and played short games.

“I think the canteen’s doing a roaring trade in sports drinks,” Martin laughed.