WE can talk the talk as much as we want when it comes to rebuilding sport in Sunraysia after COVID-19, but are we prepared to walk the walk?
The Sunraysia footy and netball season has started with juniors kicking off this weekend and the Millewa competition is just a week away yet we are still struggling for numbers across the board.
Some A Grade netball teams have been composed almost entirely of juniors this year, footy reserves have few more than 10 committed and the women’s football league are still trying to scrape together recruits.
While this issue is not restricted to football and netball on the sporting fields, as pivotal elements in the community, we can use them to take a real look into how a community with such a strong sporting identity can be struggling so much with player participation.
I’m new to Sunraysia, having been here for just a few months, but after being thrust into local sports journalism I’ve come to learn a few things about the area.
I’ve written on enough locally trained AFL players, Olympians and elite athletes to have a feel for the talent there is in the region.
And I’ve spoken to enough coaches, players and officials to know sport is the lifeblood of the Sunraysia community.
So, how are we seeing these kinds of shortages, in a year where I’ve heard so many times we’re focused on regenerating our sports, after COVID-19?
As several coaches have said in stories I’ve written this year, sport means a lot more to the community than just a game; the effects of a healthy sports presence in a place like Sunraysia can be felt far and wide.
And, sport gives us representation, on a local, national and international scale.
If we want to get more juniors, women and men into sport, and give them the opportunities and representation they deserve, we need to take action.
Something I was passionate about when we were preparing Sunraysia Daily’s footy netball lift out recently was increasing the space we allocated for women’s football.
It was a last minute decision which resulted in a couple of frantic days, with back to back calls out to the Millewa women’s clubs.
In my interview with Werrimull coach Matt Carter, he said they were still looking for recruits and I joked he might see me down there one of these days.
After putting the phone down Matt shot me a message saying: “I’m not sure if you were joking but we train every Tuesday and Thursday at 6pm, we’d love to see you down there.”
I stopped to reflect and realised these are the moments which I’ve been talking about in stories since the start of the year.
So, having only touched the oval shaped ball a couple of times (including five years ago in high school), I decided to dust off my old field hockey shoes which hadn’t had a run since before COVID-19 and give it a crack.
We need to become comfortable with trying new things; with having the security within ourselves to not always have to be the best at something, from the get go.
And like the Werrimull Football Club, whose men and women have welcomed me with nothing but encouragement and open arms, we need to encourage people in our community to get out of their comfort zones, and back into sport.
This is more relevant now than ever when we look at our juniors, who are struggling with player participation on the eve of the season.
We’ve got to encourage our young ones to be brave and to be active again.
Something I was passionate about, coming into this role at Sunraysia Daily, is the way great Australian journalism starts at the grassroots level.
And it’s the same with sport.
Be it footy, netball, soccer, motorsports, badminton and everything in-between, to breathe life back into our sporting community, we have to actually take action.
And we must encourage each other, especially our youth, to do so.
