Yarra Junior Football League under-16 girls make it back-to-back Metropolitan Junior Championships

THE Yarra Junior Football League’s under-16 girls have again been crowned the best young female footballers at AFL Victoria’s recent Metropolitan Junior Championships.

s01dt999 YJFL team and the other (from left to right: Kate Tanner, Katherine Smith and Daisy Bateman). Picture: Supplied

THE Yarra Junior Football League’s under-16 girls have again been crowned the best young female footballers at AFL Victoria’s recent Metropolitan Junior Championships.

The Yarra girls made it back-to-back premierships with a win over the South-East juniors in the decider at Dandenong’s Shepley Oval.

The rematch of last year’s grand final, which saw the Yarra girls break a six-year reign by South East Juniors, was always likely to be a tense affair.

With plenty on the line, there was some hard tackling in the first quarter.

But, sticking to its game plan, Yarra dominated the game from the first bounce.

“We knew South East were going to come out hard and target some of our key players,” coach Jeff Hooper said.

“But our girls were well prepared and didn’t let it rattle them.”

After a quarter of highly disciplined play and straight kicking, Yarra went to the first break four goals up, holding South East scoreless.

In the second quarter, the Yarra girls were able to nullify South East’s strong wind advantage, retaining their four-goal lead going into the long break.

Yarra Junior Football League under-16s are Metro champions once again Picture: Supplied

The third quarter was a much tighter affair, with South East showing signs of a revival.

However, a blinding run through the centre and 40m kick by Yarra co-captain Katherine Smith resulted in a stunning goal that put a stop to South East’s run.

The Yarra girls again resisted South-East’s wind advantage in the last quarter and held on to win 7.4 (46) to 4.3 (27).

The grand final win capped a clean sweep for the YJFL, with the girls soundly defeating the Northern Football League, a combined Western/EDFL team and Southern Metro in the preliminary rounds.

Hooper was thrilled with the result.

“The challenge was to peak when it mattered,” he said. “The girls trained hard and played hard with every player having their best game in the final.”

Co-captain again this year, Katherine Smith was named best-on-ground in the final and took out the YJFL player of the series award for the second year in a row.

The YJFL boasts the largest girls’ football program in the state with 31 teams across its under-12, 15 and 18 competitions.

Such is the depth of the YJFL’s youth girls’ stocks at present, it was able to field a development team in the Metro Championships as well.

The much younger team, defeated South Metro in a nail-bitting first game of the tournament and finished fourth overall.