Year in Review: Sydney/Illawarra

There were more than 45,000 men, women and kids playing AFL in Sydney and the Illawarra in 2013 as the code continues to go from strength to strength.

This year saw the start of the

New AFL 9s competitions started in the western suburbs, northern beaches and southern Highlands and there was the introduction of the Sutherland Shire Combined Catholic Colleges (CCC) AFL competition.

There was also the introduction of a new team in to the AFL Sydney Women’s competition with the formation of the Maroubra Saints.

Independent Schools AFL competition on Saturday mornings with 10 teams from St Patrick’s College Strathfield, Knox Grammar, Waverley College, Cranbrook, St Ignatius Riverview and Trinity Grammar.

Three Public Schools Sports Association (PSSA) regions had an excess of 450 participants each while the Pittwater Auskick Centre doubled its participants from 50 to 100.

There was the commencement of All Suburbs Independent Schools Sports Association (ASISSA) competition made up of predominantly culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) schools and AFL NSW/ACT Sydney staff were involved in

Hornsby Council’s Multicultural Day with 80-100 participants resulting in 5-10 registrations for the local club.

Staff also ran a Holiday Camp for Korean students with more than 30 participants last school holidays.

Sydney South made a clean sweep at the Under 13/14s State Zone Trials against the best in the State and 36 kids were nominated for the QBE Sydney Swans Academy from Paul Kelly Cup competitions with 26 selected for the 2014 program.

There were six AFL debutants from the Sydney/Illawarra region in 2013 with Jarrod Witts (St Ives), Brandon Jack (Westbrook), Dane Rampe (Eastern Sydney), Craig Moller (Cronulla), Will Langford (East Sydney) and Will Sierakowski (St. Ignatius Riverview) all getting a taste of elite level AFL.

The state’s first-ever AFL synthetic facility was also opened at Narrabeen Sports High School this year.