THE first generation of competitors in the national women’s football competition could hail four girls from the Swan Hill region among the league’s pioneering stars.
Luca Gallo, Tenay Fellows and Donal Fellows from Swan Hill, and Bella Ayre from Kerang, all represented Victoria’s under 16s girls’ team at the School Sport Australia football carnival last week.
The Victorian girls came away from the Sydney event undefeated, with an average winning margin of a whopping 100-plus points.
In five games against New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia, the ACT and Queensland, a miserly Team Vic defence had just 26 points scored against it.
The success, and an unquenchable passion for footy, could see the local girls competing in a nationally-televised Australian rules women’s competition from 2020.
That is the year the AFL is targeting for the inception of a women’s league to run similar in structure to the current competition.
But for now the focus is on developing women’s football from the ground up, with a probably rise in the standard of women’s football following more focused junior development.
Current opportunities for the Team Vic girls included a tour of the GWS training facilities and the possibility of training with the Bendigo Pioneers under 16s team in the near future.
While the age of the Swan Hill region four still has them sidelined from competition in the Central Murray, there participation in Sydney was secured when they registered with Bendigo club Huntly Hawks earlier this season.
Gallo said the four had to sign with the Huntly club to head to Sydney.
“That was just this year. We needed to register to play in the championships,” she said.
And while there’s no organised competition on the immediate horizon, a national competition was something to aspire to, Gallo said.
“We could end up potentially being paid to play footy which is pretty cool,” she said.
