World Footy News

Women Debut In South China AFL

South China Australian Rules Football League (SCAFL) welcomed their first female players in the recent Round#2 tournament in Macau on the weekend.

Played at the Macau International School two ladies played for the first time in this competition, one as a guest and the other very likely to become a regular player.

The first of the two ladies playing on the day was Jess Cole from Melbourne Australia, (more of her story later).

The second was Katie Klatt from Sacremento, California, USA. "Katie was keen to maximise her day out and played almost continuously for 4 hours in 6 of the 8 games. This is a massive feat and a testimony to her level of cardio’ fitness. Back in the USA Katie plays in the Sacramento AFL league in 18-a-side format and 12-a-side format games. Katie is also Vice Captain of the USA women’s AFL representative side the USA Freedom team which will be going to the World Cup of Aussie rules, IC17 in Melbourne Australia next August."

World Footy News readers will recall that earlier this year (Throwing a Klatt among the big guns, Tuesday, February 2nd. 2016) Katie flew to Australia and attended a talent search combine in Sydney to seek out talented lady players from all sporting backgrounds that may be good enough to play at the professional stage in Australia. To her credit after only playing the sport for two years, the gifted athlete was selected to enter the AFL Academy to train with Australia’s best sports women to train for 2017’s new Women’s National AFL League.

“The thing I was most looking forward to for my Hong Kong trip was a day of Footy.” said Katie. ” I wasn’t too sure if I’d get to play but it was really cool of everyone to welcome us girls onto the field, and then to show us how to have a good time in HK!”

The President of AFL Asia interviewed Katie and Jess on the day said “It was great to see the ladies playing in the SCAFL today. Both Katie and Jess, were hard at the ball laying tackles and bumps, and showed some great ball skills. We look forward to seeing more of them and other ladies that want to come out and try the game.”

Jess Cole, who until recently moved to Hong Kong played in Melbourne suburbs for the MVP Easybeats community focused “Pub Footy League”. There she played full size (18-a-side) games in mixed men’s and ladies teams. She was welcomed by the Kowloon Cobras and played alongside the men and fellow lady on the day.

Meanwhile Katie is hopefully one of the lucky ladies looking to take up the sport professionally in the Women's AFL in 2017.

"Look out for her on the TV soon."

More of this story and pictures at AFL Asia website!