Shining a light on club’s junior Aussie Rules base

A COMMUNITY grant from the AFL has helped secure $100,000 for Tweed Coolangatta to install new lighting at Barry Bennett Oval in Banora Point, with a focus on supporting the club’s growing junior base.

The club is contributing an additional $50,000 to the project, with financial support from Tweed Shire Council.

The funding comes through the AFL Facilities Fund and will allow the club to extend training hours and support more junior teams at the ground.

Tweed Coolangatta Aussie Rules junior president Carl Simmonds said the upgrades would be a gamechanger for local kids.

“We’ve been restricted in what we can do so this is massive for us. At the moment we’re only getting in an hour of training before 4pm–5pm before it gets dark,” he said.

“About 80 per cent of our junior players live at Tweed Heads and I think we can do a lot better to support them.

“At the moment we’ve only been able to get up to under-11s there for training. Soon we’ll be able to have teams there through to under-17s.

“There is still a lot of work to do, but this is a big step in the right direction.”

The club also has a field at Coolangatta, mainly used by senior teams, which is already at capacity.

Plans for the Banora Point ground include new changerooms to support the rise in junior girls playing at the club. Simmonds said girls now make up nearly half of the club’s 330 junior players.

“The ground upgrades are pivotal. We have a whole master plan which includes changerooms, lights and scorers’ boxes,” he said.

“The AFL agreed with us when we presented our case with the lighting, and as a code and a community, we need to do everything we can to support that. “Last year we had two under-11 girls’ teams and only one in the boys for that age division.

“The game is exploding with the girls, and we need to provide an avenue to help keep them in the sport.”

There are also plans to host Nines competitions over summer, making the ground a year-round facility.