Under 12 National Championships

The SANFL State 12 years and under team journeyed to Melbourne for the National Championships from Saturday July 19th to Saturday July 26th.

Five boys from the Glenelg zone were selected in this team. Jack Donkersley and Cleve Westley (Glenelg Primary School,  Brayden Maynard and Peter Spurling (Sacred Heart Middle School),  along with Bryce Woolard (Lucindale Area School) are to be congratulated.

The team won all games against Northern Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, ACT but were soundly beaten by Victoria the standout team of the carnival. It was a good effort to finish in second place overall.

Cleve and Jack kicked a goal each against NT and Jack was 5th best. Jack kicked 2 goals against NSW and was 3rd best while Cleve was named best player. Against Queensland Cleve scored a goal and was 2nd best with Jack 4th best. Cleve and Jack both scored goals against ACT as well. Cleve was also in the best against Victoria. Well done to these boys along with Brayden, Peter and Bryce.

Under 15 National Championships

For the first time in many years the SANFL sent a team to Melbourne for the National Championships. Unfortunately it followed directly after the SANFL Intra State Under 15 Championships in Adelaide.

Three Glenelg players were selected and congratulations to Brad Oates, Jacob Carger and Jack Harvey for this honour. Brad is from Edwardstown Football Club and was a good player in the SANFL under 15 Cahampionships, Jacob is from Plympton Football Club and has also played a couple of Under 17 matches for Glenelg in 2008. Unfortunately  Jacob hurt his ankle in the Adelaide Carnival and was a little restricted in Melbourne. Jack is from PHOS Camden Football Club and we look forward to him moving through the grades at Glenelg.

They defeated Northern Territory easily first up with Jacob scoring a goal and Jack named 6th best. In the second match SA beat Queensland by a goal, then Western Australia beat them by 29 points with Jack named 3rd best. Vic Metro then soundly beat SA and in the last match Vic Country narrowly won by 14 points. Jacob scored 1 goal in this match. SA finished 4th out of 8 teams.

Under 16 National Championships

Glenelg Football Club had 7 representatives in the State team that journeyed to the Gold Coast from July 25th to August 3rd.

Hayden Jolly (PHOS Camden FC and Brighton Secondary School), Darcy Armfield (Sacred Heart), Clint Diment (Bordertown FC and Bordertown High), Ben McIntyre (Naracoorte FC), Sam Barnett (Plympton FC and Sacred Heart), Matthew Fox (Reynella and Sacred Heart) and Baryden Kain (South Gambier and Mt Gambier High) formed a large contingent of the team. Well done to all these lads.

In the first match SA began well but had a bad patch in the middle of the game and then came home strongly to lose by 3 goals to Vic Country. Hayden Jolly (best player)was outstanding on the ball and Darcy Armfield rebounded well off the backline. Clint Diment played on ball and did a number of good things including kicking a goal, Sam Barnett played well on the wing in limited game time, Brayden Kain was solid off half back in the first half, Matthew Fox had little game time and Ben McIntyre used the ball well.

The second match was the highlight of the carnival with a hard fought victory by 1 point over Vic Metro. Jolly (3rd best) was again very impressive, Armfield  (2nd best) was brilliant across the backline, McIntyre was clever at half forward (1 goal), Diment was solid on ball, Kain had little game time whereas Barnet was injured and Fox was left out of the team.

In the third game with the winner going through to the Grand Final on AFL Grand final Day it was a real arm wrestle with WA. The final result was a 9 point loss which was disappointing. However, the overall carnival was  quite pleasing for SA being competitive in every game. Armfield was named best for SA with some excellent strong marking and powerful kicking, Jolly was good again but did have a tagger for the whole game which reduced his influence and Diment was good around the packs also kicking a goal and maybe should have scored a couple more, and McIntyre was lively across half forward using the ball well.  Both Barnett and Fox received minimal game time. Kain also had limited opportunities, but certainly shows promise. He has missed virtually 3 years of football since playing State Under 12’s then injuring his knee and having to have a reconstruction. He has only returned to football for South Gambier in 2008 and to force his way in to the team was a great effort.

The Glenelg Football Club is very proud of these lads efforts and we congratulate them all and look forward to their involvement in finals this year and then in the future at Tigerland.

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