ONE of the biggest drawcards of a local paper is its sport section.
While the meaty page three stories will often have the most consequences for day-to-day life of those in a paper’s locale, invariably a strong portion of readers will flick straight to the back.
The importance of the weekend warriors is not lost on The Bunyip’s team, with sports editor Liam Phillips frequently putting out 20 pages of local sport content.
We are currently in the midst of the post-winter lull, with summer sport just around the corner and Willaston’s premiership triumph now a mere memory.
Despite the lack of regular weekend programming at the moment, this week’s edition again boasts double-digit sports pages, with some of Gawler’s best and brightest to thank for the content.
What this has proven is the future of footy in the region is in safe hands.
Last week saw South Gawler youngster Kai Winning grace the back page for his selection in the AFL World Team.
Young Winning features again this week as he recounts his trip to Victoria where he was able to pick the brains of some of the AFL’s top players.
He was, however, unseated on the back page, making way for another up-and-comer in Aidan Schubert.
Another Trinity student, Schubert got to live out every kid’s dream, playing on the MCG on grand final day, albeit in a curtain-raiser.
Next year looms large for the young gun but his temperament and love of the game is something to be admired and will no doubt stand him in good stead as his potential draft year approaches.
Something both young guns had in common was an impressive sense of maturity, and both have proven to be exceptionally polite in their early forays into the media.
Alongside Schubert was a trio of Central District guns, with the Bulldogs continuing to emerge as a footy factory in recent years, with this season’s under 18s one win away from the ultimate glory.
Travis Head, Riley McGree, Darcie Brown and the like will often steal the headlines and rightly so, while Caitlin Wendland and Elaine Grigg continue to fly the flag for the north in the AFLW, with Wendland particularly impressive in Port’s most recent victory.
The present is well and truly taken care of, but locals can rest assured that the future of sport in the northern regions is well and truly in a good spot.
