Eighteen of the Gold Coast’s Youth Girls have been named in the 30 player squad for the Under 17 Southern Stars. The Stars squad will be cut down to 24 before the late October Championships in Cairns.
Wendy Bristow, Jasmine Coombs, Kristy Ferguson, Jade Madeley, Mhari-Claire McAteer, Keeley McClelland, Beth Pinchin and Tia Scorgie return after representing the Stars in last year’s Runner's Up campaign. They will be joined by Aliza Bettiens, Holly Byrne-Hartmann, Elizabeth, Kiarna Harris, Elizabeth Klyn, Talei Patton-Croker, Emily Smith, Jessica Watts and Kody Wolter-Smith for the first time.
Surfers Paradise Demons have eight of their girls selected the most of any Gold Coast club, while Carrara Saints aren’t far behind with a total six girls named. Broadbeach are also represented with a couple of girls and a few girls have come from the AFL Gold Coast school sport system.
The Southern Stars also includes girls from our Southern neighbours Northern Rivers who have two girls included in the squad, while our western friends the Darling Downs have a grand total of ten players in the squad of 30.
"It's great to have all three regions represented heavily in the squad of 30, even though the squad still needs to be cut to 24 by the end of August all of the girls should be proud of their efforts so far", the Southern Stars program coordinator Jeff Neumann said on the girls selection.
"We have had 19 State representatives from the Stars program over the past 3 years, three of the u18 Stars QLD representatives return in Jade Loch and Isabelle Baldock from the Darling Downs, along with Naomi Simpson from the Northern Rivers I believe we have a couple of more that could go on and play next year, especially a few of the Gold Coast girls"
The squad is still yet to be cut to 24 before the end of August and Neumann believes most of the girls will keep their spot.
"There are girls from the Darling Downs, Northern Rivers and Gold Coast fighting for spots, unfortunately 30 doesn't go into 24 and unfortunately we can't selected 24 midfielders or 24 forwards etc, we have to select a well balanced squad to take away"
"Gold Coast would be very lucky to get all 18 through and if all eighteen put in the hard work then you just never know, commitment is the number one key for the Stars, so we will see what happens."
Stay tuned in the next month to see which girls make the final squad of 24.
Last Modified on 12/12/2012 09:09