Gunnedah to host AFL festival and gala day

Wolseley Park will be all things AFL this weekend, with an AFL Festival of Footy on Saturday and a North West Junior Gala Day on Sunday.

Saturday’s event is a senior representative round featuring the North West Blue Heelers, North Coast Force and Central West Eagles teams, before Sunday’s event features U10, U12 and U14 teams showcasing the future of AFL in the region.

There will be three women’s fixtures and a men’s fixture on Saturday as players from Gunnedah, Inverell, New England, the Tamworth Swans and Tamworth Kangaroos represent North West.

The first match features the Blue Heelers and Central West Eagles, and then the Blue Heelers contest North Coast before the final women’s contest involves Central West and North Coast.

The women’s teams will vie for the Regional Australia Bank Cup, awarded to the team with the most wins.

North West and North Coast will square off in the men’s fixture, which will be the first time since the start of the COVID pandemic that the AFL men in these regions have the chance to play representative football.

The Blue Heelers men’s squad of 26 includes the Gunnedah Bulldogs quintet of Darcy Hill, Mason Louis, Liam Naismith, Andrew Osmond and Malcolm Roberts.

The Blue Heelers women’s squad of 22 includes the Gunnedah Poochettes contingent of Amy Clark, Laura Ewington, Chelsea Palmer, Zoe Palmer, Abbey Ruttley, Alexa Walker and Beccy Wilson, while the coach is Gunnedah Bulldogs men’s player-coach Jakob Vearing.

Ewington, Ruttley and Walker also played for the Blue Heelers last year while Vearing was the coach, when North West opposed North Coast in a women’s representative fixture at Newcastle.

Walker also captained the side despite not being Gunnedah’s skipper, before she took on the captaincy role at the Poochettes this year.

The captain of this year’s women’s side was not yet named, when this edition of the newspaper went to print.

Last year’s squad also featured Poochettes players Lily Jensen, Meg Leaton, Casey O’Connell, Katrina Rekunow and Georgia Tibbs, none of whom have played for the club this year.

Ewington was named player of the match in the Blue Heelers’ 4.2.26 to 1.1.7 triumph in blustery conditions, with the Force kept scoreless until the final term.

Walker said the Force provided tough competition, while “it was a fantastic experience for many of our players and a great showcase of regional talent”.

“It’s an exciting opportunity to be involved in representative footy across regional NSW, particularly as we continue to see the game grow and thrive in this space,” she said.