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Remote Lake Nash AFL team is hungry for a win and a kangaroo on the way to game
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-19/y ... tion=sport
The Lake Nash Young Guns footy team struggles for money to travel the 600km to their games, and if they do not get a kangaroo on the way to the game, they most likely play on empty stomachs.
Alpurrurulam, or Lake Nash, as it is commonly known, is an Indigenous community on the Queensland–Northern Territory border.
In the centre of town is a red dirt Australian Rules Football Oval, where the Lake Nash Young Guns can be seen training every evening.
As they run, often barefoot, or in socks, they leave a trail of red dust behind them.
"When they grew up as children, they always had a ball in their hand and it has just never stopped," club president Renee Larkins said. "It is not just a game to these fellas, that's their life, it's love, they are very committed, and it is a different love for the sports that they have."
This love of football has also helped keep the players out of trouble.
"When they are there on the field and when they are at training, they are not drinking, breaking-in or running amok, they are doing something that they love," Ms Larkins said. "The sniffing has stopped heaps, there's not a lot of sniffing anymore, there's no breaking in anymore, the fellas are doing really, really well."
Every weekend the team travels a 600-kilometre round trip on a rough dirt road to Mount Isa in North West Queensland for the game. Since their bus broke down two years ago the team has had to take their own cars to town.
"It is very hard on the cars, sometimes we have to take little cars in, like Commodores and stuff, and you have to drive so slow because the roads are that messed up," Ms Larkins said. "Sometimes there is no room in the car and most of us get left behind," player Gregory Wilde said.
To get to Mount Isa each car will use a full tank of fuel, and more, for the way home.
"If we are taking three or four cars, that's about $100 or something for each car to fill up," Ms Larkins said. "Then you're filling up more cars to come back again, so that is another $400, so about $800 a week, depending on how many cars we take in. That's half of their wage each, they struggle a lot, they hardly have any money as it is."
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