THE Woorinen Recreation Reserve will be a hive of activity this weekend, with former Australian netballer and Collingwood AFLW footballer Sharni Layton to pull on the yellow and black.
Layton is expected to take to the court for a one-off appearance in Woorinen’s round 8 Central Murray match against Swan Hill, despite coming into the match under an injury cloud.
Layton will be joined by former Melbourne centre half forward David Schwarz, with the pair to conduct a sportsman’s night later that evening.
Woorinen A Grade netball co-coach Tayla Bennett spoke to The Guardian this week about the prospect of sharing the court with the 46-cap Diamond and Commonwealth Games gold medallist.
“She’s an incredible person for us to get to our club with her knowledge and experience,” Bennett said.
“It’s not only with her netball career, but her football career as well and that works well with our club at the minute and the number of talented young girls playing both sports.
“From what I understand, she is going to be playing some netball for us, however, she did play for another club last week and pulled up a little bit sore.
“Regardless of whether she plays or not, it will still be awesome for our club to have her on the sidelines throughout our matches and to have her at our sportsman’s night as well.
“There are lots of people that look up to her and lots that really admire her story, and I think her story in particular will be beneficial for a lot of young girls out there.
“We have a lot of kids in the area that are still torn between two sports when they shouldn’t really need to be torn between what they want to do, because Sharni has proven you can do both.”
Woorinen will also host a Big Freeze MND event throughout the day, with money raised going towards motor neurone disease research.
