By JARROD POTTER
CRANBOURNE and Lyndhurst junior female footballers traded their local jumpers for a taste of the big time this week.
Cranbourne’s Kayla Ripari and Courtney Jones as well as Lyndhurst livewire Emily Browning ran out onto the MCG on Friday night and were treated to an absolute display of dominance.
Whether Eagle or Lightning, the trio shone in Vic Metro’s 95-point demolition of Western Australia to take out the AFL Youth Girls National Championships for the second consecutive season.
Vic Metro stole the show from Western Australia and the hosts made sure the home of football became its happiest hunting ground yet.
It was as clinical a performance as ever seen on the MCG, as the Metropolitan charges left no stone unturned en route to its second consecutive national championship.
Jones and Ripari flew across the wings all week long while Browning was the hard-edged inside force Vic Metro called upon when the going got rough.
“It’s a really good moment – I played last year and we didn’t really win by this much so it’s really good,” Jones said. “At first I was really nervous, but as the game went on I just got better and better and it was great to just have the team mates there with me.”
Even with the scoreboard flying and Vic Metro all but assured the premiership by the end of the first half, Jones said the focus was the next bounce, the next contest and constantly resetting expectations to run out the game properly.
“One thing we’ve been taught is just at the end of every quarter we just say it’s back to 0-0, start again, let’s keep trying harder and not worry about the scoreboard until the end of the game,” Jones said.
She’ll take away the memories of back-to-back flags, but Jones said it was made all the better to be around a brilliant group of players, coaches and trainers.
Just being able to be in the team, be in the moment and be around a great group,” Jones said. “I just can’t describe how much I love them all; it’s great to have them by my side and it was a fantastic week … Go Vic Metro!”
Vic Metro coach Wayne Siekman said Jones, Ripari and Browning were pivotal parts of the Metro structure and had well and truly deserved their spots in the premiership winning side.
It wasn’t all great news for the Cranbourne region though; up-and-coming midfielder Georgia Gourlay cruelly missed the carnival after re-rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament. Gourlay played a few minutes of last year’s Youth Girls carnival when she suffered the first injury, before returning to the field earlier this year and having the injury reoccur in her first game back.
She underwent surgery to repair her knee this week and remained upbeat, saying she was looking ahead to 2017 and making the Vic Metro team once again.
