Queensland female football is flourishing, if you ask Hyundai Help for Kids Lions Academy Manager, Luke Curran.
Curran implemented the Hyundai Help for Kids Lions Academy for the state’s best upcoming female talent over the Summer, and with the recent success of the Lions’ inaugural Women’s team, the pathway to professional female football is looking bright.
“The program took another step forward in recent weeks with two games played against the Gold Coast SUNS Academy at the South Pine Sports Complex,” said Curran.
The Lions Academy girls have won two from two matches against the SUNS, and in doing so have exposed a raft of local female talent.
“They’ve been training one night per week since early November so it was a perfect opportunity to put the training into practice under match conditions, and also tie it in with the launch of the Lions AFLW home games.
“The girls have trained with the Lions’ U16/17 North and South boys squads for majority of the summer before coming together as a separate girls squad and training at Yeronga. This has allowed the girls and their coaches to get up to speed with our Academy training program and mirror what the boys have been learning and now will build on this as a standalone squad.
“The development of the girls over summer was clearly evident in the way they played in both games with their ability to win the contested ball and then handball out of congestion to a free teammate impressive. We’ve also focused on their kicking and marking and again their ability to find & hit up a free teammate by foot also improved considerably.”
B4 the bounce - both youth girls academy teams & umps lined up for 1st ever Youth Girls Academy game! #HHFK #GirlsPlayToo pic.twitter.com/pDobWccECg
— HyundaiLionsAcademy (@LionsAcademy) February 18, 2017
Curran said it was hard to single out any standout players as all of the players have embraced the program and performed their roles well.
“Belle Dawe, Tarni White, Jacqui Yorston and Tiffany Dale have performed well across both games, our taller players in Jessi Henning, Jesse Wardlaw, Tammie Stower and Courtney Murphy who all excel in other sports have also shown their potential, and one of our youngest players in Zimmorlei Farquharson shows great maturity and ability and will be one to watch in the years to come,” said Curran.
“The 26 girls currently in the squad will continue training and shift their focus to our Youth Girls Academy Carnival to be played in Coffs Harbour in late April with teams from the Suns, Swans and Giants Academy’s getting together for a round robin of games with QLD U18 state squad selection up for grabs.”
Ahead of last year’s AFLW Draft, the league brought in a father-daughter rule which means the daughters of AFL players are linked to their AFLW clubs.
Those men needed only to play one AFL game to qualify their daughter for the club or clubs they played for, opening the door for the daughters of former Lions stars to be able to follow in their footsteps.
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