AFL teams need support

Secondary students and academy teams played their footy yesterday at Colts Grounds in Port Moresby under the Australian Football League supervision.

The academic team comprises of young talented males who are in primary and high school but have been playing senior footy mainly in the reserve grade, while the secondary team comprises of players selected from secondary schools in Port Moresby.

In the training session this month, the players have been kept together in preparation for next year’s season as the team will be traveling out but are waiting for the green light from Queensland AFL.

Coach William Yogomin said the team’s challenge is basically to do with sponsorship as a couple of young players are coming outside of Port Moresby and the club is not capable of handling the cost.

“I would like the business houses to come out and see what is happening to the youths’ sports and we would like to see the corporate sponsors back the youth sport.”

The captain of the academy team, Benedict Popal, shared the positive results he experienced while playing in AFL.

“I went to Australia in 2017 for PNG’s Binatangs under 14 and in 2019, I went to Gold Coast to play for the state championship and I stayed for 2 weeks there and I was selected there again to play for the Queensland state.”

The captain of the secondary team, Demas Bailey, said most of the players in the secondary team do not have any idea about AFL but getting involved is a way forward in familiarizing themselves with the game.

“Some of us don’t really know what AFL is but because of the influence of some of our friends, we are getting involved in it and we are looking forward to discovering the game itself.”

The junior grade team and the secondary team are seeking assistance from corporate houses in preparation for the 2020 season.

(Article by Albert Moses – third year UPNG Journalism student)

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Albert Moses