Regional and Metro Players Connect – Carine JFC and Kalgoorlie City JFC

Metro and Regional Junior Clubs often feel worlds apart, even when in the same WAFL development zone. In 2020, Peter Hicks, coach of the 7/8 Kalgoorlie City Juniors, wanted to give his team something to look forward to and had the idea of organising a trip to play a metro team.

Jayd Holmes, Vice President of the Carine Junior Football Club, was who Peter called upon to make it happen. Peter and Jayd had both played their junior football in Kalgoorlie and were old opposition players from Colts through to Seniors. They’d maintained the friendship formed playing regional footy over the years, even though Jayd was now living in Perth.

Quickly, a “Trip Group” was formed to help with the organisation, coordination and administration of making this trip happen. The members of this group volunteered their time to ensure all policies and procedures were followed, all documents were filled out and all mouths were fed on game night. After an eight-hour bus trip, the team had made it to Perth and was at their accommodation at Ern Halliday Recreation Camp.

As with many regional Junior and Youth competitions, Kalgoorlie plays in mixed age groups, and the representative side coming up was comprised of players from Year 7 and 8. Jayd saw this as an opportunity to form stronger relationships intra-club at Carine, so asked players from the Year 7 and 8 teams to nominate if they wanted to play, allowing both Clubs to field Year 7 and 8 players.

Kalgoorlie currently doesn’t have a Youth Girls competition, so Kalgoorlie City had a few girls players on their team. It happened that the Carine Year 7/8 Youth Girls had a home-game against North Beach. While the games were played at the same time, the Kalgoorlie girls were able to meet our Youth Girls afterwards and find out more about our female competition.

Both Kalgoorlie City and Carine lie in the Subiaco Development Zone. To strengthen the pathway and show the players where their playing careers may take them if they choose to follow the talent pathway, the clubs had organised for Kyle Stainsby and Hayden Kennedy to come down. Both boys had played at Carine JFC and Kalgoorlie juniors respectively and addressed the players pre-game.

Showing what community links we have through all levels of pathways, Peter had organised for Dom Sheed (WCE) to arrange two signed geurnseys to award to the best player from each team. Jayden Joubert from Carine and Jake Tucker from Kalgoorlie were the lucky recipients, with other best players on the evening receiving some merchandise from Subiaco. Kalgoorlie City also walked away with a range of Carine Junior Football Club merchandise including preseason training singlets.

As all the players exchanged their social media contact details, there was already talk of Carine players making a trip to Kalgoorlie next year for a re-match. A great initiative by both clubs, it’s great to see the strong link formed from the game which will help continue to develop into the future.