My National Championships Week

Hello my name is Xavier, I’m in year 6. A couple of months back I successfully made the Victorian U12 AFL team to compete at the Australian Championships. These Championships could have been held anywhere in Australia, but we were lucky enough to have it in Geelong. This lasted from August 4th to the 10th.

The opening ceremony took place on the 4th of August, and it lasted a while, introducing all the states to the homeland of Victoria. The states competing at the Championships were NT, QLD, SA, WA, ACT, NSW and of course Victoria. The first game was on the 5th of August we versed ACT and ended up comfortably winning 128 - 0! This game, the same as every other game coming up, I played as a half backer but mostly a midfielder.

On the 6th of August we had 2 games coming up against WA followed by NSW, these teams were two very good teams, but we overran both teams by a margin of a staggering 50 points. Before and after all games at the carnival we had to weigh in and out as well as recovery after every game including warm baths, ice baths, massage guns and Normatec Leg Compression Boots, which was sadly quite painful at times but we had to do it to be fit and firing for the next day.

August 7th was the day we versed NT. This game wasn't very entertaining considering the match finished up with the score 133 - 6 our way. The next day was a fairly fought game by QLD, they were very rough towards me and our team and the game ended up a low scoring game 59 - 13 Vic’s way, but believe it or not it would have been even lower than this against South Australia. After the QLD game we went to Geelong Grammar for recovery instead of the usual place we had been going to.

On the 9th of August we had a bye, in other words no game. So this day I chose to go to the beach very early in the morning which was freezing cold, because at 11:30 we had a team bonding session that lasted a couple long hours.

The last day was the decider of who was going to take the cup home, SA or Victoria. This was a very low scoring game as I said before and was a hard fought game by both teams but the Vic’s happily brought the cup home celebrating hard with the scores ending 36 - 19. After this we sang the song loud and proud in the clubrooms, signed each other's guernseys, took photos and made memories we would never forget. Victoria finished on top SA second WA third NSW fourth QLD fifth ACT 6th and NT ending up last. After all, this was one of the best weeks of my life and I’ll never ever forget it.

STATE SOCCER FINALS

On Wednesday September 4th a squad of 14 boys travelled to Darebin International Sports Complex (DISC) to play off for the State title. There were 8 schools remaining in Victoria and we were one of them. There were two pools of 4 teams in each and you had to finish on top of your pool to qualify for the Final.

Our first game was against Ballarat Grammar School which we drew 0-0. Our second game was against Kennington PS which we drew 1-1. This set up our remaining game in the pool as a must win game and it was against Hampton PS who were undefeated. The winner of this game would finish top of the pool. We also required Ballarat GS to defeat Kennington PS.

The game against Hampton was hard fought and at the end of 30 minutes we won 1-0 and Ballarat GS knocked out Kennington PS 2-1 which now placed us top of our pool on 7 points to Ballarat GS 5 points followed by Kennington PS on 5 points.

The final was set up between Plenty Parklands against Alamanda K-9 College who had won their games 3-0, 4-0 and a draw 1-1.

The grand final was a high pressure game with Plenty Parklands having a few opportunities to score but didn’t and Alamanda defending quite well and not being able to penetrate our defence. We played for 30 minutes and at full time it was 0-0. We then played a further 5 minutes each way and the result again was 0-0 which triggered us to move to penalties. I was quietly confident in the boys when it came to penalties however there are never any guarantees due to nerves setting in. We missed our first penalty kick and although it put us behind we never lost our focus. As each kicker took their penalty kick after that we put it behind into the net. After it was all said and done the final score was 11-10 Plenty Parklands way and they became the State Champions.

It was a well deserved win full of emotions by all who witnessed it and in true Plenty Parklands spirit we were respectful of the other team’ s loss.

To all of our parents and supporters on the day we were well represented and you could hear the cheering from the sidelines. To Mr Jankovski who ran the lines for me on the day and provided some insightful knowledge this was greatly appreciated by the boys and myself.

Congratulations to all the boys for training and working so hard never losing sight of what we set out to do this year, for the support of the parents at every game we played and to all of the leadership group and staff support back at school.

On behalf of the State Football Champions for 2024 thank you to everyone who supported us along our journey.

PRACE

Certificate III in School Based Education Support