Saturday will be a history-making day for Greek women of the world. It is the first time that a team of women of Hellenic descent will take to the field to play a variation of Australian Rules footy.
The team will be appearing in the 2022 World 9s tournament on 19 February, hosted by Australia Football International (AFI) which is dedicated to promoting the Australian game around the world. And with that in mind the World 9s version of the game is played on rectangular fields where rugby and soccer are played using the rugby posts and goal posts of soccer as the targets for scoring. In this variation you score single goals not points.
Unlike the traditional game where 18 players per team are on the field, as the name suggests, nine players make up a World 9s team.
The CEO of AFI Brian Clarke said he had been talking to ethnic communities in Melbourne and abroad with the ultimate aim of having the 9s game adopted around the world so that it may eventually be adopted in the Olympics.
While Greek men’s teams have been a part of the AFIs Harmony Cup for years – last year they were in the grand final of the tournament – there had not been any participation from Greek-Australians in the women’s tournaments.
“I am always contacting community groups and it is crucial to find the key person. In this case it was Kon Konstantaras who has been coaching men and women’s football for years. He has done a lot of great work to get the (Greek) team up and running which is a very difficult thing,” Mr Clarke told Neos Kosmos.
Mr Konstantaras , the coach of the “Women’s Greek International Team” that will run out on the Box Hill Rugby Club grounds on Saturday, has a long history of playing and coaching the full version of the Australian game to men and women’s teams.
Currently coaching Albanvale/Braybook senior women’s team under the Western Region Football League, Mr Konstantaras has been a coach for the past 22 years. He has been involved in local football from Victoria to the Northern Territory and coached his first women’s team at Deer Park in 2011.
“Victorian women’s football really began to take off in 2014 when it joined the AFL (Australian Football League). The only difference at the start was that the women were not as committed to training but now they work just as hard as anyone,” Mr Konstantaras told Neos Kosmos.
He was coaching a game at Hopper’s Crossing when someone told him that the AFI was looking for a Greek coach. He put up his hand a year ago to coach a Greek men’s team for the 9s tournament last year. He was then asked to help put together a Greek women’s team for the 2022 tournament.
“It was not easy at all (to put together the team). I first went through the local leagues and picked a few players. I also advertised on social media and picked a few more there and got some players from the World 9s from previous years,” he said. The majority of the team are Greek Australians but there are a number of honorary Greeks in the team.
“We have been training every Sunday with the other tournament teams at Gosch’s Paddock since December. I think we will be competitive and could make the grand finals if not, the finals.
“The players have been working really hard and we had a practice match against the United Nations team. The Australia team are very good,” he said. “Our team is good all over the ground, they can all mark, hold the football and there are some good kickers.”
The team also has a shirt sponsor, Markos Greek Kitchen Bar in Williamstown.
In a World 9s game, the players can run with the ball for 10 metres without bouncing the ball (in Aussie Rules it is 15m). The fields are shorter so the game moves quickly up and down the field, like basketball, said Mr Konstantaras who is also coaching a men’s team for the World 9s.
A Greek men’s team will be playing at another AFI event the Harmony Cup on 27 February which will be a full Australian Rules football tournament featuring seven other teams.
The World 9s tournament kicks off at 10am on Saturday, 19 February at the Box Hill Rugby Club. The Women’s Greek International Team take to the field at 10.40 against Nauru.
