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Here is a report on the 2007 School Sport Australia Touch Football tournament I wrote for the Touch Football South Australia website. Not sure if it is up there yet, but here’s what I wrote anyway.

Secondary School Sport SA, in conjunction with Touch Football SA, were again represented this year at the School Sport Australia National Championships. With Monash University providing a fantastic site, including newly surfaced fields, it was nice to actually have grass under our feet.

The teams travelled together, and having had a much closer relationship throughout the training campaign than in the past, this set the tone for the trip. With a direct flight from Adelaide to Melbourne, at not too unreasonable a time, both teams were pumped for the weeks competition. After arrival in Melbourne, and a long bus ride from Tullamarine to the accommodation, the players were met by a blast of un-Melbourne-like hot weather.

The good weather didn’t hold for the whole week, however, with rain on most of the competition days. At least the sun was out for the trip to the MCG on the Wednesday, where our lovely tour guide, Brian, provided us with a fun, interesting tour of the famous ground.

Competition was tough on the first day of games. With both boys and girls teams facing the big two - QLD and NSW - it was always going to be hard work. Both teams showed plenty of spirit against well drilled and capable players from the eastern seaboard, with the boys managing a touchdown against their QLD opponents.

The second day of games was much more interesting. With three potentially winnable games against Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia, both teams were eager to win, but were disappointed with their performance in the morning games. The boys in particular looked to have the game in hand, but struggled to keep the Tasmanian boys from scoring enough touchdowns to steal a draw in the dying minutes. The girls came back from this result to resoundingly beat Victoria in their second game of this day, and were finally looking like they had travelled for a reason. However, they ran out of legs in the final game of the day, and couldn’t manage to keep WA’s half runners from finding their targets.

As mentioned previously, after the strenuous second day of competition, the Wednesday was a day of rest, with a trip to the MCG, and then to IMAX cinema for an entertaining, yet still educational movie about Dinosaurs.

The final round games were against “The Territories”, with opportunities to beat both ACT and NT going begging in both games. By this time the strain of the tournament was starting to show on the bodies of the players - whilst the fields had grass on them, they were still hard enough to leave a nasty graze.

The finals were another chance for both teams to play against teams they could have beaten the first time around. Again, whilst at times it looked like both teams could have won their way through to the Plate Final, the girls struggled against a young yet effective Tasmanian team, and the boys were unable to top the NT team. And so it came to the 7v8 playoffs. The SA girls again managed to dispatch the Victorians, with a great captain’s effort by Georgia Brown to score four touchdowns in the one game, and Beth Fairfield almost winding up to top speed to score a couple more. The boys battled valiantly, but again struggled against Tasmania, who outscored them in the second half.

A hard, yet enjoyable week. With mostly first-time players in both teams, some new to touch football altogether, and many being eligible to play again in 15s next year, the trip to Launceston for next year’s tournament promises to be just as much fun. As our state develops and these junior players filter into our senior ranks, you can bet you’ll see plenty of them playing at a high level in the future.

Awards.

Boys.

• Coaches - Tom Starkey
• MVP - Alex Peecock
• Players Player - Billy Macklin

Girls.

• Coaches - Abbey Freer
• MVP - Kelly Rowe
• Players Player - Georgia Brown