Sports News 

AFL Years Ten to Twelve Carnival          

On Tuesday 30 March, we had students represent GSG at the Years Ten to Twelve AFL Carnival at Centennial Stadium. All players represented GSG well in the senior competition and had mixed success over the day. 

Years Ten to Twelve Boys

It was a great opportunity for our AFL boys team, to have an initial hit out against some other school based competition as they commence to prepare for Country Week. Our day started with a match up against St Joseph's and the boys quickly settled into a nice brand of footy after some rushed moments early on. We lowered our eyes as we moved the ball in some tricky wind and ended up with a comfortable win. We then took on NASHS and ASHS in the following games. These games both followed a similar trend. Our side was very young and we had four late withdrawals of senior players which didn’t help our cause. Both schools were a bit stronger in the contest and able to move the ball freely in space. In the first halves they had our measure but in each game the boys evened up the contested ball in the second half and the margins were contained to around five goals. These games were a great learning curve for our boys about what is required to compete against the bigger bodies at other schools. 

Some notable performances for the day included Andrew Smith being dominant in the ruck and following up on the ground as he took on the opposition to move the ball forward with ease and Kobi Keen was strong through the middle of the ground all day showing a willingness to take the game on. Lachie Steytler tried hard on wing all day, Bailey Peacock was a focal point in attack when resting forward and some newcomers to AFL showed they weren’t out of place. 

Years Ten to Twelve Girls 

The senior girls won their first match against a late starting but fast-finishing Denmark side. They had a close match against Bethel/St Joseph's combined side which saw both teams leading at some stage during the match. Unfortunately, our GSG team went down in the end.  NASHS were far too strong and played an excellent brand of AFL with some great movement of the ball from hand and foot from the centre square. They demolished our side, 12 goals to nil. Unfortunately having six players withdraw in the 24 hours prior didn’t help the 11 remaining players on the field for GSG. We just ran out of legs as we played ASHS in the final fixture who again showed some great team skills supported by lots of numbers.  

Some special mentions, were Lily Wilsher-Saa up forward, tackling sensation Claire Higgins, some hard ball gets by Louise Quartermaine and Hailey Zaw and defensive work by Jessica Marsh and Jasmine Butterworth. Didi Cusack performed well in the air and on the ground, and Samara Ravenhill Dennis put her body on the line on many occasions, copping a head collision with another player late in the day, which finished her day early. All the girls battled hard throughout the day and I’m sure woke up a bit sore on the Wednesday. 

Mr Nathan Symonds | Director of Sport