Henley High School set to play games in Victoria after being cut from elite competition
One of SA’s greatest footballing schools has resorted to playing interstate after being left out of elite local competition – a move it hopes will strengthen its program.
Local Sport
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One of the state’s most successful football schools has resorted to playing interstate games after being unable to test itself against other elite SA programs.
Henley High School’s open team lost its opportunity to play against colleges this year after a new college-only finals format was introduced for the SAAS First XVIII competition, ending senior games between state and independent schools.
The format effectively discontinued the SA all schools knockout cup, an end of season inter-school competition which Henley had been dominant in, consistently either winning or finishing runner-up.
This meant the school – which has produced countless AFL names such as Jack Lukosius, Izak Rankine and Jase Burgoyne – missed playing other strong programs like Prince Alfred College, Sacred Heart College and Rostrevor College.
“It has definitely been frustrating,” head coach and football academy teacher Ben Kane said.
“We’ve always welcomed challenges from college teams and we’ve presented a number of proposals to keep the all schools cup, an event we’ve been a big part of, alive but unfortunately there’ve been some decisions made which have pushed us out.
“We got pretty close with having some recent games with Rostrevor and they were keen as well, but the powers that be didn’t end up getting that through either so we’ve had to look elsewhere.”
As a result of missing out on a competitive game in SA, Henley is now close to finalising games for later this year or early next year against strong Victorian schools Rowville Secondary College and Maribyrnong College.
It is a move Kane said would open up more opportunity for the school’s athletes.
“It would really benefit our athletes – they’re going to get a lot of exposure in Victoria and there might also be opportunities to link up with AFL clubs,” He said.
“Both Rowville and Maribyrnong are winning their school competitions so our players are very excited to test themselves and have the opportunity to do some learning on a good footy trip.”
Kane also added the opportunity would take the school’s already strong program to new heights.
“Off the back of what we’ve already built to now venture interstate and have some really strong, competitive games and give our players more high performance experience, it’ll be huge.
“We’ve already got great relationships with SANFL and its clubs so to be able to extend that into Victoria and possibly clubs there, athletes who come here are going to know they get very good opportunities.”
While the opportunity had the staff and players at Henley excited, Kane said they were still eager to play against local competition if it became a possibility again.
“We’d still love to have the opportunity to play against schools like Sacred Heart, PAC, St Peter’s and Rostrevor at the open level,” he said.
“That being said, all we’re after right now is a competitive hitout for our open guys and we’re going to get that in Victoria.”
The Sport Association for Adelaide Schools - which runs the First XVIII college competition - said it presented Henley with the alternative of joining.
“A number of our players are committed to clubs outside of the SAAS competition - workload, player management and SANFL timeline made involvement in the all schools knockout program difficult to fit.
“Henley High School is invited to join the SAAS competition which includes 31 member schools across a wide range of programs, and we hope that they and other schools will look to join us in the future.”
Kane said that option would rid Henley athletes of their chance to play SANFL - a significant drawcard for the school’s program.
“We work in partnership with the SANFL and 90 percent of our kids are in SANFL programs so if we joined the SAAS competition we’re taking kids away from that - it was never going to be an option,” he said.
“The short answer is there would have been many opportunities to give us two competitive games a year against strong colleges but it hasn’t happened.”
Henley will look to finalise the interstate fixtures in the coming weeks.