Juniors — NWFL, North West Football League

NWFL JUNIORS 2019

by NWFL Independent Delegate, Shane Lee

Another junior footy season drew to a close with the Grand Final played at Dial Park, Penguin on Sunday August 18th. Congratulations to our junior premiers for 2019:

U12 - Burnie
U14 - Devonport
U16 - Devonport
Youth Girls - Ulverstone

The Best and Fairest Count was held at the Wynyard Football Clubrooms on Friday night and was well attended by all clubs. Thanks to the Wynyard Football Club for hosting a great night. Winners are listed below.

As everyone would be aware the season got off to a disrupted start with the withdrawal of the Circular Head Giants from both the Senior and Junior competitions. Fortunately, several players (with great family support) chose to continue to play at the higher level provided by our competition and were able to find spots at Wynyard and Burnie Football Clubs. From all reports this has been a success and the Executive is appreciative of these clubs for welcoming the players into their respective Clubs.

With the return of the Giants to the comp in 2020 unlikely, we would encourage more junior footballers from the Circular Head region to take the opportunity to challenge themselves in our competition.

2019 also saw the NWUA provide umpires for many of our games. This was a win/win for both our competition and the NWUA as it took the pressure off the Clubs to provide umpires and gave the Umpire Association the opportunity to mentor several prospective junior central umpires in a much less pressure situation. Hopefully we can build on this relationship into 2020 and assist the NWUA recruit more umpires to assist them with their Senior numbers in the years to come and provide more umpires on a Sunday.

East Devonport continue on their path to rebuild their Junior programme and we look forward to them being in a position to recruit more players from the DDJFA next year to allow them to reintroduce an Under 14 team into the comp.

During the course of the season our young players were given the opportunity to try out for the various State Underage Representative teams with several making it through to represent Tassie. Congratulations to the following players:-

Under 12 State Team reps - Kynan Lee, Bowen Clemons, Nash Walker, Mason Brown, & Ethan Bond (Captain of the State team)

Under 15 State Rep boys - Baynen Lowe, Tyson Slatter, Jake Dixon, Jonty McIvor, Logan Elphinstone

Under 18 NAB League - Cohen Stevenson, Jack Rand, Joey Chaplin, Liam Viney (NAB League VC), Joel Hennessy, Baynen Lowe, Lewis Deegan, Blair Ryan

Under 18 NAB League squad members - Joe De Santis, Cooper Stuart, Lachlan Blakemore

Under 15 State reps Girls - Lily Johnson, Candice Belbin, Starley Purton, Paige Hursey, Shania Saward.

Representing your State is a major achievement in your career to date and we look forward to more players getting selected particularly now that we have Jamie Hayward permanently based on the NW Coast as an AFL Talent Manager.

To assist coaches monitor actual match time played by any junior player the Executive purchased an Interchange App which has been provided to all clubs. Unfortunately the App only became available later in the season but already we have been able to identify some clubs that are not being consistent with sharing playing time amongst their players and have pointed this out to the respective club/coach. In season 2020 we will be looking at this information more closely to ensure a more even spread of game time.

Whilst it would be great to say we were able to get through the season with not too many issues either on or off the ground this has not, unfortunately, been the case. Everybody involved needs to be mindful of the fact that the competition is primarily run by volunteers. Without their involvement we would struggle to be able to conduct such a high standard competition. Mistakes are made, not intentionally, but they do happen. We need to be mindful of this, accept it and move on. At the end of the day it is a game and we are all trying to give junior players the opportunity to have a game of footy with their mates in a safe environment. Abuse of players and umpires at any time is unacceptable and should not be condoned by anyone.

Thank you to all of our sponsors who are listed below. Finally, thank you to NWFL Secretary Vicki Slater and NWFL Administrator (Juniors) Gemma Cole for the work they do in overseeing the competition.

Sponsors

The Advocate - Aussie (Burnie) - Burnie & Smithton Travel Centres - Gowans Isuzu Ute - Burnie Trophy Centre - Mead Con - Hawthorn FC