Of all the sports I (attempt to) play, touch football is the only one I do on a weekly basis.
It’s high-intensity, so it’s an incredibly good workout. It’s competitive without being completely over-the-top. And there’s often a sausage sizzle held at someone’s house after the game… sausage sizzles are my life.
What I love most about touch is seeing the variety of people that also play. It’s everyone from five-year-old kids to 65-year-old women – sometimes even in the same team. It’s official, organised games as part of competitions, or it’s casual Sunday run-arounds in the park.
Also? I love the fact that we have some AMAZING touch footy teams currently competing on national and international levels. Teams that are filled with women who all work or study full-time, but are passionate enough about touch to pay their own way through training and games.
All of these women are between the ages of 17 and 32 – and yes, they use their own hard-earned cash to get themselves to different events, even on a global level. The team includes Emilee Cherry and Charlotte Caslick, who were part of the Australian Women’s Sevens team that played in the 2013 Rugby World Cup in Moscow earlier in the year; four other players were also part of the Jillaroos Rugby League World Cup win just a couple of months ago.
And the team is kicking some incredible goals (not literally – you don’t kick goals in touch footy). As a team, they’ve won seven – count em – SEVEN consecutive World Cup events since the inception of the event in 1988. So – 1988, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011.
There’s normally about 30 countries participating in these world cup events – so it’s not exactly a small achievement.
They’ve also won every Trans Tasman series (against New Zealand) since the event started in 1986, and have only lost two Trans Tasman matches in 27 years.