St Bernard’s invest in junior girls footy

The Snowdogs junior club is hopeful of fielding under-10, 12 and 14 teams in the Western Football Netball League this season as it aims to create a pathway from the junior to senior program for female players.

The pre-season program has seen players involved in a training session with the North Melbourne VFLW side and quickly pick up skills of the game under the guidance of parents volunteering to coach.

It’s now hoped players will have greater opportunity after the club received a Telstra Footy Country Grant, part of $1m spread across 250 clubs Australia wide.

Club president Mark Juricskay said the vital funding would go to a number of areas including jumpers, equipment and specialised coaching.

“We want to be helping out our players as much as possible,” he said.

“With the rising costs involved in local sport, we don’t want to be passing those onto families. This grant will help us with equipment for our coaches, whether that’s bibs, cones or anything.

“We’ll look at specialised coaching, we’ve got exceptional dads who are coaching these sides but if we can support them with experts it’s going to give our players a better experience.

“We had some girls teams before the Covid pandemic, they were under-16s and 18s. But this time we thought it was a great opportunity to build from the bottom and build a strong connection between both sides of the club.”

St Bernard’s girls co-ordinator Jo Hardwick said she was determined to see the program continue to grow.

“When I first put my hand up to lead the girls footy program, I thought that if we could get around 25-30 girls registered in our first season that would be a huge success,” she said.

“We’re still a few players short of that target and we’d really love to see a few more girls come down to St Bernard’s and give footy a try.”

AFL executive general manager of game development Rob Auld said he was delighted the first round of funding was being distributed into communities.

“To know that more than 250 clubs will share in more than $1 million in the first round of funding for Telstra Footy Country Grants is incredible and it’s exciting to know this is just the beginning of the four-year program,” Auld said.

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Anyone interested in playing footy at St Bernard’s can contact the club by emailing juniorpres@stbernardsfc.com.au.

Three more rounds of grants will also be made available.

Clubs can apply here.

Originally published as St Bernard’s invest in junior girls footy