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As the focus of AFL clubs turns to recruiting the best young talent at next month’s national draft, Veale said that many young players were over worked.

“A lot of these kids end up playing 30 or 40 games a year, for two or three years in a row,” Veale said.

“It really adds up for a 17-year-old athlete. It doesn’t surprise that some kids come up with burn out issues at this sort of age.

“You have the AFL boys who are complaining that the 22 match year is too much, yet we are not really worried about the 16-year-olds playing 40 games a year.”

Veale has worked extensively with the best young players through the AIS program in recent times. Many of these players are involved in state, school and club football programs throughout the year. Veale says monitoring their workloads could help them avoid injury. “The biggest issue that I have come across is that the kids love their footy too much,” he said.

“We are trying to change a few things by getting the players to report how much they are doing. Then we can educate them that sometimes playing because you love to, is not always the best thing for you.”

AIS/AFL Academy high-performance coach Jason McCartney agreed saying an injury to a young player could damage his prospects.

“One thing that frustrates AFL clubs is when they draft a player and he can’t participate straight away because he is injured,” McCartney said “When you are drafted you only really have two years to make an impact, otherwise you are out the door. You can’t afford to be sitting idle for six to 12 months because it could cost you. We really need to encourage everyone involved to take the long term view.”

Queanbeyan Tiger’s midfielder Kaine Stevens was involved in the AIS program this season. He played around 35 matches for Queanbeyan, NSW and the AIS, despite an injury that ended his season in August. While he is not eligible to be drafted until next year, Stevens’ father George believes the injury lay-off is a blessing in disguise.

“He has been going non-stop for three years,” he said.

“The break will do him the world of good.”

In the ACT a number of prestigious clubs offeran array of services and club facilities. These determine the prices for membership and green fees. It is fair but golf attracts young people, and as they get older and more time poor golf becomes less of an option.

“Clubs are having to get more progressive with their categories of membership, and I know with our ageing population we have to do more things to retain our younger golfers,” the mManager of technical and membership services for the NSW and ACT Golf Association, Rod Clark, said.

“Traditionally you get younger people, who suddenly get girlfriends or mortgages and they find themselves time poor and therefore golf is not a high priority,” he said .

The result of not having a governing body for golf as a whole makes membership issues a point of contention for some golfers. The clubs are independent businesses and are only loosely affiliated with associations such as the PGA and the ACV Golf Association.

“The clubs might come to us for advice on certain matters, but clubs run independently and they charge what they need to charge,” Clark said. The executive officer for the NSW/ACT Division of the PGA, Melville Proud, said, “The clubs decide themselves what they do about their membership categories and whether they encourage students or not. Junior golf is strongly administered through the Jack Newton Junior Golf Foundation and the State Amateur Body. These bodies do their best to promote junior golf and young members, because that is the future of the game.”

PGA Professional Murray Blair, from Gungahlin Lakes Golf Club said, “It’s great to see younger members and students playing golf that’s why we have competitive rates here at the Lakes. They are the future of the game.”

While Western Sydney is not scheduled to enter the AFL until 2012, it was reported in The Age on August 28 that the new franchise was likely to enter a team in the 2010 under-18 TAC cup competition. The move follows the lead of the Gold Coast franchise which played in this season’s TAC cup ahead of their scheduled entry into the AFL in 2011.

Many of NSW’s best young players are already tied to AFL clubs through the NSW scholarship scheme. This means they are unable to play for Western Sydney. In order to field a competitive side Western Sydney could use the ACT as a recruiting ground.

AIS-AFL Academy high-performance coach Jason McCartney said the ACT could become linked to Western Sydney.

“One of the recommendations may well be that the ACT becomes part of the Western Sydney region,” McCartney said.

The scheme was introduced three years ago and allows clubs to secure 15-year-old players from the state with the view to drafting them when they turned 18. The scheme now looks to have denied Western Sydney potential players, according to McCartney. “NSW is obviously slightly diluted because of the NSW scholarship scheme,” he said.

“There are a lot of players unable to participate in the greater Western Sydney squad at the moment because they are currently on scholarships with other clubs.

“It’s obviously slightly different to how the Gold Coast was structured early because they had local players to pick from.”

The proposal would be a blow to AFL Canberra clubs. Queanbeyan’s Kaine Stevens and Ainslie’s Ryan Tutt would be targets for the new franchise after impressive performances at representative and AFL Canberra level this year. Queanbeyan coach Mark Armstrong said while it is in Stevens’ best interests to play for Western Sydney, it would be disappointing for Queanbeyan to play without him. “I hope we have him again next season,” Armstrong said.

“Unfortunately it looks like we might only have him every now and then. I really want to give him some big games next year in the midfield where he can really take teams apart.”

McCartney said an official decision on whether Western Sydney would enter the TAC cup next year needed to be made soon.

“That’ll need to be resolved pretty quickly,” he said.

“Within eight or nine weeks, the Melbourne TAC cup teams will start training again.”

AFL NSW-ACT game development manager Garry Buchanan would not confirm whether Western Sydney would be involved in the TAC cup next year. However, he said he expected an announcement once the AFL fixture had been released.

“I would expect an announcement within the next month to six weeks,” Buchanan said.

“Once they get the (AFL) draw out they’ll start looking at the TAC cup draw. It would have to be by the end of October or close to it.”

The AFL draw is due to be released within the next fortnight.

“I think Melbourne are going to be too strong,” Tongue said. “They’ll be too strong with the men in the key positions of fullback, hooker and halfback. They’re in great form, they’re fresh, they’ve been there and done it before and I just think they will be too good across the park.

“It will just come down to the key player’s individual brilliance at key moments in the game that will get them over the line, and I think Melbourne have got too much of that.”

Penrith Panthers coach Matt Elliott cautiously agreed with Tongue.

“It’s a bit of a guess, but Melbourne are the team most likely to win,” Elliott said. “The quality of their team across the park is probably superior to Parramatta’s and they play a style of footy that generally suits grand final footy.

“Smith, Slater and Inglis; their performances over the last month from a technical point of view have been spot on …but in saying that I don’t think the margin will be big at all.”

Elliott has had to come up with two completely different game plans this season when his Panthers lined up again both teams and says Parramatta should be able to read the Storm’s attack based on Billy Slater.

“Melbourne are very structured so you have to limit their go-forward and also Slater is probably the key indicator as to where the ball’s going to go,” Elliott explained.

“Melbourne have to stop Parramatta’s offloads and second phase play; they need to limit and respond to it, and with the confidence Parramatta have accumulated, they’re going to be a massive handful for the Storm.”

Parramatta has won 10 of its past 11 games and those 10 wins have been all been sudden-death matches. Alan Tongue can’t believe that a team which finished eighth has come all the way to a Grand Final and says it will be one of the greatest accomplishments in the codes history if they go on to claim the premiership.

“If they do go on to win it, it will be one of the great feats; coming from eighth and with all the great things they have done in the back end of the year, because their first half of the year was pretty ordinary,” Tongue said.

Elliott says Parramatta’s revival has all come down to one man who he says has had an even greater impact on his team then the legendary Andrew Johns did at Newcastle.

“Inside Parramatta’s story is the story of one particular individual whose influence on the team has been immense”, Elliott said. “I haven’t seen to many players affect a game’s result as he has and that’s Jarryd Hayne. Even Joey [Andrew Johns] in his prime, I can’t remember him grabbing a hold of 10 games and saying, ‘I’m going to win all of them’.”

Tongue said that Parramatta must take the gamble and play the same style of football that has got them to the Grand Final, but he says that their strength may also bring their downfall if they do not execute properly.

“They have to get off to a good start and be patient,” Tongue said. “There’re throwing the ball around a lot and against the Bulldogs they came up with a few too many errors and were a bit erratic at times and they can’t do that against Melbourne because they will make them pay for those mistakes.”

The League is being sponsored by Major League Baseball from the United States, and will be funded for up to five years by them.

The National League will hopefully be used as a springboard for Australian baseball players to get themselves into Major League Baseball in the United States.

Ken McInnis, General Manager of the ACT Baseball Association, is overjoyed that the ACT has been chosen to partake in this venture.

“We have the facilities at Narrabundah, we have the players in the ACT, all we need to do is to get into this league,” McInnis said.

“To make sure we are successful we need more pledges to register at our website.”

Major League Baseball requires Canberra residents to register their interest for a team by form of a pledge of $20.

‘Let’s do it Canberra’, the official program to register pledges has recorded approximately 200 thus far. For Canberra to secure its spot, it requires 5000 pledges.

Mark Hindle, Secretary of ‘Let’s do it Canberra’ thinks it won’t be hard to reach that target.

“The community is the key, and there is support for baseball out there. We just need to promote this opportunity,” Hindle said.

“It would be disappointing not to have this in our backyard.”

ACT Minister for Sport and Recreation, Andrew Barr, supports the push for a team in Canberra.

All information regarding Canberra baseball can be found at www.letsdoitcanberra.com.au Maurice Bach 0430630926 Igraduated09@gmail.com Contacts Ken McInnis – 6247 7244 Mark Hindle – 0437497253

“The kicking is ridiculous,” FitzSimons said.

“Penalty’s should be taken down to one point. If they did that you would get a game back and you wouldn’t have guys going for penalty goals every single time.

“Kicking may be a way to win a game but it is a way to bore rigid your audience and if I had a dollar for every up-and-under that was kicked, every penalty that was kicked I’d have fifty dollars and that’s not why people go and watch the rugby.”

In the six Tri-Nations matches played so far, there have been 50 penalty goals kicked and only 18 tries scored. NSW Waratahs scrum half Josh Holmes says it has not been an exciting Tri-Nations series.

“The kicking has been taking the try-scoring out of the game which hasn’t been good to watch,” Holmes said.

Holmes admits to being frustrated as a player when he is involved in games that are dominated by both teams kicking, and it seems the players don’t mind how they play, as long as they win; even if it isn’t a great spectacle.

“As a spectator you definitely want to see tries…but the attitude of the players is that they want to win the game and whichever way to win they’ll do it,” Holmes said.

FitzSimons and Holmes both fear for the future of the game and have even confessed that rival code rugby league is more enjoyable to watch.

Holmes said, “At the moment with the league on, you can’t really compare because the league is pretty entertaining and in union they’re winning games by kicking six penalty goals and people don’t want to watch that.”

FitzSimons said, “They can continue to play like that but over time people will not go and watch the rugby. Overtime people will drift away from it and I think that’s starting.”

“You look at that Tigers game that other night where Benji Marshall was supreme playing against Parramatta, everybody’s talking about that game; the way they played, the tries they scored. No-body is saying ‘gee did you see the Wallabies on Saturday night’.

“Overtime Rugby is going to have to sort itself out because you cannot just kick the ball away like that.”

Andrea Pitsolis, who plays centre and also serves as captain, has stamped her authority on the team. Her exceptional speed sets her apart from most in the competition. This speed, coupled with good court vision, has helped her become the most dominant centre in the competition. She has displayed this form throughout the season, and her final game was no exception. The Magpies helplessly tried to contain Pitsolis, swapping their centres, and even trying two defenders at once. However, Pitsolis still had a heavy involvement in the game.

Aimee Turner, who plays Wing Attack, claims that Pitsolis makes it easier for those around her.

“Andrea almost always attracts multiple defenders, which means someone else on the team is unmarked,” Turner said.

Kathleen O’Connell has also become a central figure in the team, with her form steadily improving as the season progressed. O’Connell plays as goal-shooter, and her accuracy percentage has become formidable. One of her major advantages is her unusual height. She is well over six feet tall, making her a very difficult assignment for any goal-keeper.

In the final game, O’Connell was in top form, and was simply too good for the defenders who attempted to stop her. The Magpies defenders did not have the height to stop O’Connell from receiving the ball, and her shooting accuracy was strong from the minute the game started, and got better from there. In the final quarter, O’Connell did not miss a shot, and helped her team take a five-point victory, deservedly taking the Player of the Match award. Pitsolis believes that O’Connell was the difference between the two teams.

“She (O’Connell) had an incredible game,” Pitsolis said. “They just couldn’t stop her, and it was like she couldn’t miss.”

This win has the Spinsters excited for the future, with all the players confirming they will be back next season.