Country Football

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (15:34): I very much look forward to what I am about to say. I want to congratulate the footballers in my home town for a magnificent premiership win on Saturday against Encounter Bay. The Great Southern Football League has an incredibly high standard. It has taken us 36 years to win our fourth premiership, and the club is coming close to 100 years as a football club.

The spirit and the enjoyment have been lifted immensely in our town and this augurs well for our future. I want to acknowledge the dedication of the senior coach, Peter Galbraith, and his assistant coaches, Simon Robinson and John Corbett, and the team manager, Mr Corey Young. On this occasion, after being privileged to captain the A grade side for the last eight years, I will also put on the public record my appreciation of my own son, Nick Brokenshire, for working with what is a champion team of great young men.

Importantly, the Mount Compass club has not won this premiership by spending a fortune, as has sometimes occurred in recent years in country football. They won it with 15 out of the 21 players in that A grade having come through our junior and senior colts. Three of the players between them have played over 600 games. They won it with no points, yet the team they won it against, Encounter Bay, were at maximum points to the extent where they had to bring in two senior colts to comply with the rules.

It was a good game by both teams, hard fought, but from the point of view of the whole community of Mount Compass and the district, after waiting for 36 years, we are very grateful and very proud of these fine young men. I hope that we can do a back-to-back next year.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: How much did they win by?

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: They won by three goals, four, or 22 points. I just want to put a couple of other points on the record regarding football. There was one incident which put a black mark on the day. On this occasion it was one of our players who, in the last quarter, was deliberately elbowed and knocked out. We saw the same thing occurring with a situation in the western suburbs on the weekend as well.

I, for one, will strongly support SANFL in any actions they take to ensure that deliberate assaults on the football field are treated the same as any other assault. Assault is assault, and it is an illegal criminal offence, irrespective of where it is carried out. I also want to support SANFL in their initiatives next year to look at random drug testing. We must keep drugs out of sport, and I know they are looking at developing a policy.

I also congratulate SANFL for the fact that they are looking to bring the salary cap down from where they started this year at $4,000 per game per team to $3,500 per game per team. We will destroy country amateur and metropolitan sport if the financial demands on clubs to buy players is too high. We need to bring people who have the passion for the colour. That is what I saw with the Bulldogs wearing the maroon and gold on the weekend. Those boys were there for the passion of that colour and the commitment to that colour and to our football club. That is what it needs to be.

If SANFL continues to pull down the cap, then it will mean that we have a lot more football teams in country South Australia, rather than seeing a reduction in those teams. Also, I want to acknowledge Mr Paul Zimmermann, who has done a great job this year as president, and his hardworking committee. They have been very professional. It is actually a business you have to run these days when you are running a football club. Over and above their own business and family commitments, they have been tireless in the way they have gone about their dedication and commitment.

I want to acknowledge the coach's wife, Tracy Galbraith who, along with the other wives and partners of the executives of the football club, has sacrificed so much to let these men do a lot of the development work over the last five years with these young players to get this premiership. It is sweet. We will be enjoying it. I look forward to the presentation dinner on Saturday night.

I will finish with this: sport is a paramount focus that we, as parliamentarians and governments, must have on all people but particularly young people. There were great achievements on the weekend, not only in football but also in netball. We are coming into cricket and tennis. When you have sport running well in your town, you have a healthy environment, you have a good community spirit and you are doing a good job for the young people of your district. I encourage all committees to keep working hard for the benefit across the sector.