REPRESENTATIVES from the grassroots football community, including coaches, umpires, and female footballers from the Victorian Women’s Football League, Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League, and South East Juniors were provided with a exciting opportunity to view the Club’s NAB Cup match against Essendon at Etihad Stadium on Thursday night as guests of GM Football, Chris Connolly.

Sixteen representatives were treated to a visit to the change rooms before the game, to watch how the players prepared for the big match.

 

Next stop was at ground level, where the coaches viewed the pre-match on ground warm-up from the boundary, with Chris Connolly explaining the drills and providing the guests with the opportunity to ask plenty of questions.

 

AFL Operations Manager, Adrian Anderson, and Chief Executive of the AFL Coaches Association, Danny Frawley, also stopped by to speak to the group about the importance of their input at grassroots level.

From there, it was back to the rooms to watch the final warm-up, and once the players had left the rooms, Academy coach Kelly O’Donnell took the group through the matchups and strategy for the game, providing a real insight on what the group was about to see from the players.  

 

Game time, and our grassroots guests sat back, relaxed and watched the match, keeping in mind everything that they had just learned from Kelly, and trying to analyse the game.

Half time - and one last visit to the change rooms, where they watched the players regroup for the second half and had the opportunity to listen to a coaching address from assistant coach and Casey Scorpions coach Brad Gotch who reviewed the first half, and went through the strategy for the second half.

 

The night was a fantastic opportunity to reward hard working volunteers at grassroots level, and provided an experience that they will never forget.