Last year, many of our grade 5 and 6 girls broke the tradition of playing netball for winter school sports. Instead, they put in a girl’s footy team, coached by our Essendon loving principal Mr Banks. This lit a sparkle in the girl’s eyes, and they wondered “what would it be like to play footy every week?”
With that came conversations with the FCFNC committee and they embraced the idea, the Fairhaven Homes Southern Gippsland League happily welcomed Fishy to the league and Will Kranen said, ‘I will coach them’ even though he moved all the way to Boolara and fuel now costs a million dollars.
Fast forward to last night (17 April) and our girls ran out onto the ground proudly wearing the Fish Creek Football Netball Club girl’s jumpers. They had with the words of Coach Will in their minds: “play for each other, look after each other, play with courage, have fun and you will always be encouraged to try something new.”
And the game was intense. Phillip Island was experienced but they may have underestimated what a fresh new team could bring to the ground. The Fishy girls are fit, coordinated, fearless and have a fire raging in their bellies to do well. They did all the stuff: they smothered, they tackled, they shepherded and there were goals and points. This all created great noise from the crowd and luckily Carly Buckland had a set of binoculars and could give a running commentary for those of us who are getting a bit older and are paying for fuel rather than glasses!
First quarter scores were even 7 – 7, halftime had Phillip Island up 13 – 7. At three quarter time Phillip Island still held the lead 16 – 13, but in the final quarter Phillip Island tried to score but our defense was too strong. Then, Addie Manne kicked a point that made her mum Jasmine jump out of her chair and Marlow Hamlett kicked another point right on the siren which bought the house down.
Phillip Island won the game 16 – 15 but the Fishy girls have walked away with their first game under their belt and a feeling that they can do anything!
Our town surrounded our girls as they ran on the ground for their first game – with mums, grandmas and some of our star netballers saying, “I wish I could have done this when I was a kid”. The girls know the significance of being the first ever Fish Creek Girls team and wore their jumpers with pride and appreciation for the generosity of sponsors Little Oberon and Paragreen Real Estate.
Round 2 is a home game in Fish Creek at 6:30pm Friday 24 April – come and get around our girls! Donna Gillam, Fish Creek
