By Andrew Wiles – @andrewjwiles
When the 2015 Queensland Women’s Amateur Football Association season gets underway on April 18, there will be two new teams on the results page.
The Bond University Sharks and the Burleigh Bombers will field female teams for the first time in their respective clubs history.
After beginning training in July last year, as well as competing in the 2014 Australian University Games, Bond University are more than prepared for what lies ahead this year.
Assistant coach Rebecca Palma, who was pivotal in the creation of Bond’s team, said the interest was instant.
“It took us a couple of weeks and before we knew it we had 30 girls down at training,” she said.
“We entered the Australian University Games and everyone loved it and everyone wants to play all the time.
“Its really exciting, everyone’s a little bit nervous not knowing what we are up against but everyone is keen to start because we have been training so long. It’ll be good to put everything we have learnt into practice.”
Although new, they will be still be out for premiership success.
“At this stage its all about having fun, learning, learning about the sport, and developing our skills, but we are a competitive bunch so I wouldn’t mind seeing a premiership later on in the year,” she said.
Burleigh Secretary Kaye Cook spoke of the hard work that has gone into getting their QWAFA side up and running.
“There has been a lot of hard work and phone calls and texting back and forth with girls, but it’ll be great to see the girls running around,” she said.
“They were excited to take their jumpers home last week to show their partners that they have their own footy jumpers now.”
Burleigh will act as a feeder team to the Coolangatta Tweed QWAFL side, allowing the two clubs to share resources as well as players.
“The Coolangatta coach [Aaron Russell] has been helping out the girls with training. They are going to have a few extra girls so that might help the team out numbers wise to start off with,” Cook said.
It will also present the Burleigh players the pathway to progress into the QWAFL ranks as the season goes on.
