Surprise win for Gaels

GEELONG will look to field a Gaelic women’s football team in the premier Melbourne competition after its start-up team won the Australasian championships on Saturday.

Geelong Gaels GAA club president John Reaney described the one-point victory over St Kevin’s as the biggest win in club history, less than two months after the team was made from scratch.

“Both our men’s teams got to the final, so they played off, and our ladies team — thank heavens — (won the final) which is the biggest win ever in our club’s history, I think,” Reaney said.

“They’d only been training basically six weeks. The majority, especially the Aussies, haven’t played Gaelic football before and they’ve just taken the rules and game up so quickly.

“St Kevin’s (are) from Melbourne, they play in the Victorian comp and they would have had 12 Irish girls who would have been playing all their lives, and we beat them by one point in the final. I still can’t believe we won it.”

Reaney said the next goal would be to field a team regularly in Melbourne’s premier Gaelic comp.

Meanwhile, Geelong’s two men’s sides played off in the final, highlighting the strength of Gaelic talent in the region.

“We had a Geelong Green and a Geelong Gold team. The Geelong Green team won fairly well in the end,” Reaney said. “Also, there would have been over 120 kids playing (in the morning). It was just fantastic to see so many kids playing.”