With the junior competition grand finals taking place on Sunday it was a time to shine for our pathways clubs.
Competing in an astonishing 10 grand finals between them, our junior clubs Glebe, Newtown and Canada Bay Cannons, took home a combined 5 flags.
Digging deep to cause upset victories, the Glebe/Newtown Alliance teams in the U14 Div 1 and U15 Div 2 were complimented by solid Cannons victories in U12 Div 1 and U12 Div 1 (youth girls). The Newtown U12 Div 2 team stood tall in a low scoring affair to be successful in their grand final.
Unfortunately for the Glebe Club they were unlucky to lose both their U11 Div 1 and Div 2 and U13 Div 1 grannies in hard fought contests and the Canada Bay U13 Div 3, U14 Div 2 and U14 Div 1 (youth girls) will look to go one better next season as they weren’t able to get across the line this year.
In school footy, our pathway school Newington College were able to improve on last season and finish second in 2019 in the First XVIII competition, causing a major upset with the first loss by St Ignatius firsts since the establishment of the schools competition. In great signs for what’s to come it was pleasing to see that across the independent schools we had 5 of this year’s Colts permit players being named in the honorary “All Stars” team.
This has been a fantastic effort and we are extremely proud of our youngsters achievements. We will continue to work closely with them in the development of strong local football and look forward to when they graduate from their pathways clubs to join us in the years to come!
As a testament to the strength of the talent in our pathways, our Colts team will take on UNSW in the Under 19 Div 1 Grand Final this weekend with over 80% of the team having played their junior footy locally!