With four teams entered in the tournament held on March 26-27, the ‘green machine’ powered to finals in the under-10, under-11, under-12 and under-13 grades.
SJSA technical director David Davkovski praised the style of football adopted by the Shepparton sides.
“I think the way the teams played, something that resonates quite well with all the coaches is that even at such a young age, we make sure it looks like football,” Davkovski said.
“We really worked hard on playing out from the back, controlling possession and all the rest of it.
“Even well into the finals, the coaches’ instructions were that it needs to continue looking like football all the way through.
“To tick that box and get into the finals was something special to be honest.”
With teams from as far as Sunraysia, Wodonga, and other areas of the state descending on Epsom Huntly Reserve for the tournament, SJSA powered through to plate finals in the under-10, under-11 and under-13 grades.
The latter emerged victorious over Bendigo City 1-0 in the big dance, while the under-12 side managed to go one further and secure a cup final, eventually losing out to Williams Landing in the decider.
However, looking beyond the results and dissecting SJSA’s progress makes the weekend’s success even more meaningful.
Davkovski said the association had outlined a blueprint five years ago to hook Shepparton juniors in at an earlier age, hone the basics and sharpen their skills in order to better their chances of reaching an elite pathway.
It’s resulted in strengthened numbers attending Talent Identification Development Centre camps and Football Victoria programs in Melbourne ― the ultimate end goal of the SJSA model.
“The outcome was to try and capture kids at a younger age ― I think there’s a bit of a misconception in Australia in a sense where, being involved with the Victorian squads myself, they get kids in at 11 or 12 years old,” Davkovski said.
“I felt that we really need to be getting kids at seven or eight years old and fine-tuning them at that discovery period.
“That’s something we set out a long time ago and now our under-13 and under-12 kids are very heavily involved in the Vic squads as a result.
“We’ve just done so much work with them at a younger age. We didn’t set out five years ago to win anything, we set out to capture a younger group of kids to work on their fundamental skills of the game.
“It’s very exciting and, with the program we put together five years ago, we’re only really just starting to see the evidence now.”
Davkovski wished to acknowledge the coaches of each group, lauding the efforts of Tim Lardner, Luke Slater, Paul Nieuwenhuizen and Tommy Giuliani.
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