NORWAY JOSE

Coast footy club gets a kick out of Scandinavian talent – and that’s no joke

FIVE Norwegian girls walk on to a football field ...

It sounds like the set up to a bad joke but for the Surfers Paradise Demonettes it’s exactly how their 2019 pre-season began.

Milla Randsborg (wing), Linnea Bjork (forward flank), Maren Hauger (forward flank), Johanne Midttun Systad (wing/forward) and Sunniva Heggem (ruck), all 17, will this season line up for the Demonettes, who play in the fifth tier of Aussie rules in Queensland, the QFAW Division 2 South.

Understandably, officials believe the team’s opening pre-season trial – an eight-point win over Lismore – was the first time five Norwegians have been involved in any official Aussie rules game in this country.

The girls, who are on student visas and attend Benowa State High, lined up again against Morningside on Sunday and Midttun Systad booted a goal that helped seal victory.

Heggem moved to Australia eight months ago in a student exchange and gave our national game a go after some gentle encouragement from a friend.

“I heard about it being a big game in Australia and then one of my friends from Norway said she was going to try it out so I decided to go as well,” she said.

After playing handball back home, Heggem said Aussie rules was unlike anything she’d experienced. “It’s really different,” she said. “I think I’m getting the hang of it but I’m not used to tackling and the roughness.”

Despite feeling “very nervous” before her first pre-season practice match, Heggem and her friends have fallen in love with the game and have grand plans to start a girls team in Norway when they return later this year.

“We’re going to try but we’re not sure how it will go,” Heggem said.

However the recruiting is off to a great start. “I’ve already told them I’m coming over to play,” Surfers captain Katrina Pridmore said.

Pridmore, 37, said the girls had added a new dimension to the team this year as they chased success.

“Our girls range from the Norwegians who are all 17, up to girls who are 37, 38 and 40,” she said. “They’re a fun bunch of girls. “They want to learn because most of them hadn’t seen a game before they got here. They don’t know the rules or positions so we’re trying to teach them.”

Surfers have partnered with Griffith University and introduced a range of new staff including coach Garry Van de Werken.

Pridmore said the team had high expectations in 2019.

“We’re a professional and very different outfit to last year and the girls really want to do well,” she said. “We expect to make the grand final but at the same time, we’ve developed a mantra which is that we want to be cute but in a competitive way.

“We want to do the best we can as a team but in a way that everyone in the competition respects us.”

Pridmore, part of the club’s 2004 premiership victory, hopes her team can experience the same feeling of elation she did 15 years ago.

“We took it (premiership success) for granted,” she said.

“Since then I’ve had kids who all play at the club, I met my husband at the club so to have success again would mean so much more.”

The Demonettes will play their first game of the season on April 6.