Helping my son's Australian Rules football team win a Junior Premiership.
We had been involved with this club for years. I started helping and coaching in the under eights and each year the team bonded and grew together.
Premierships are hard to come by. More than 6 months of training, twice a week and regular weekend home and away games. There is a lot of planning and organising.
Parents have to volunteer and do lots of behind the scenes jobs so their children can play. This particular season my son was playing up a year (in an older age group) and I was the team runner. My job was to deliver messages to the players during the game from the coach on the side line.
Australia Rules football in played on a large, cricket sized oval with 18 players per side. The game is made up of four 20 minute quarters plus time on for stoppages. The coaches can talk directly to the players at quarter time breaks but the team runner can deliver short messages and positional changes during play. I was heavily involved with training the team during the week as I was the only parent that was still actively playing the game in an over 45 years old competition.
So the week in question was huge! Making the Grand Final match was big! We had to make sure the team got through training with no injuries. We had to announce and pick our final squad, and a couple of players had to miss out.
We were not the favourites to win - the other team had three big state representative players and we had none. All they had to do was put them in key positions and go straight down the middle. Our game plan was to try and keep the ball wide and away from them.
I think the coaches and team runner (me) were more nervous than our players. Any technical penalties on our part could be devastating. If I got in the way of play while on the ground our team would be penalised.
Obviously, our plan worked and I did not get in the way. We got to the lead early and it was as if the other team was too over confident, thinking they could score easily. But we keep the ball wide and away from their big guys. There was only ever one goal or kick between the two teams.
The final siren so sweet! Something I will never forget! We still relive that moment if we ever meet any of the old players or parents.
What made it even sweeter was my own son came up with a big play late in the game when he was out numbered 3 to 1.
All photos credited to Volunteer team photographers