AUSTRALIAN Rules Football has grown immensely in the region over the last year with nearly 60 players signing up to compete in the inaugural junior competition.
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The competition began largely thanks to Yarrowitch’s Neil Dunn, was was last week awarded Tamworth AFL’s volunteer of the year award.
Dunn put forward the idea to Tamworth and NSW AFL organisations when his son expressed interest at signing up.
"My son wanted to play AFL and we googled junior AFL and the New England Nomads came up but there was no competition there,” he said
"There were a few other parents in the North West who started the NIAS squad and one of them said 'Why don't you have a go at getting a junior competition going?' so I did. I put a proposal to Tamworth AFL and NSW AFL if we could actually run a junior competition and within a week we had a couple of NSW AFL representatives up here to give us a hand.
"We couldn't believe that it actually had happened. The thing about the junior competition is there was nothing between Auskick and seniors.
"That is why we thought we had to start something. The Tamworth AFL executives really came on board to help facilitate it.”
The first junior game was between the Tamworth Swans and Inverell Saints.
The New England Nomads also formed a side in the competition and have impressed in their inaugural year.
They play in the preliminary final against Moree this weekend.
"The senior Nomads watched one of the junior games a fortnight ago and one of those guys said it was the best game of footy he had seen in New England,” Dunn said.
"We are getting heaps of praise about how the junior Nomads team is going.”
Dunn said interest in the competition continued to grow and many spectators enjoyed the talent on display.
"There are 60 kids in the region now who are enjoying playing AFL now,” he said.
"I am getting quite a few phone calls from people about next year, or are interested in how it went this year.”