The Kiama High School under 15 Australian football team travelled to Albury over the weekend with one goal
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To create history.
Create history they did, with the boys upsetting Albury High School in the final of the Swans Shield NSW CHS Knockout tournament to become the first team from north of the Riverina to win the competition in it's 37-year history.
After jumping out to an early lead, the boys grimly held on in the dying stages, with Kiama turning a 58-41 three-quarter time advantage into a 60-56 victory.
AFL South Coast community manager, and proud father, Tim Martin, said all the players were ecstatic to have won the Shield.
"It's an extraordinary achievement," Martin said. "Considering the dominance of the Riverina over the years, for a little high school from Kiama to come and knock them off their perch is pretty extraordinary.
"The boys led all day, they knew the Albury boys would come hard in the last quarter, so it was a pretty big defensive effort to hold on. It was a tense ending."
Monday's victory marked the climax of a six-month journey, with Kiama's campaign starting with the early rounds of the knockout competition in March.
The journey featured a number of twists and turns, with the team made up of a mix of Kiama Power players and rugby league juniors who put their hand up to represent their school.
The final was scheduled at an inopportune time for those rugby league boys, with many featuring in last weekend's Country Championships in Wagga Wagga.
"Primarily a core group of them play Aussie Rules together for Kiama, so they all know each other well, know their patterns of play and teamed up well together.
"Then there's a number of boys from other codes, mostly rugby league and those boys all stepped in, played their part and fit in really well. You wouldn't have known they're not AFL boys."
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