Rumbalara Football & Netball Club

Rumba is a community and family orientated club that provides a culturally safe and supportive environment for all community members to chase and achieve their dreams.
“Proud, strong family… that’s Rumba”

• 2011 Unity Cup (Monday 2nd May) - The Rumbalara Football and Netball Club in partnership with the Congupna Football and Netball Club, the City of Greater Shepparton and the Ethinc Council of Shepparton hosted a wonderful day of sport focused on honouring and celebrating the status and role of women in our community. Guests at the Women's Morning Tea in the Queen's Gardens heard inspirational stories of the nurturing role of women in the family, at work and in local sporting Clubs. The Hon Jeanette Powell provided the key note address at the President's lunch and spoke of the critical role women play pointing out the many role models young women have to look up to, including local elders and community leaders such as Felicia Dean (Rumbalara Aboriginal Cooperative CEO and RFNC Netball President), the Governor General, Her Excellency Quentin Bryce AC, The Hon Julia Gillard Prime Minister of Australia, a wide range of national, state and local politicians, athletes such as Cathy Freeman and musicians such as Deborah Cheetham. Highlights of the day included the smoking ceremony and Women's Walk of Solidarity across the football oval, songs from the Dunghala Children's Choir and Eskimo Joe, who visited with Oxfam. General Manager of the Murray Football League Dale Norman acknolwedged the day as a great success and Club President's Paul Briggs and Debbie McColl noted the exciting vibe around the ground, the great spirit displayed in all thirteen games on the day, and that everyone would be welcome at the 2012 Unity Cup to be hosted by Congupna. For the record Rumbalara senior football and Congupna A-Grade netbal took out their respective Unity Cups.

• A clean sweep...almost! (Saturday 16th April) - The Club missed out on a clean sweep of all football and netball grades by two points in A-Grade netball against Tocumwal today. Despite the narrow loss the girls were very pleased with the effort, and know a win is just around the corner. Coach Karyn Ferguson said she was rapt with the performance, and feels the girls are not far away. No one can remember the last time the Club won U14s (95-55), U17s (92-34), Reserves (147-16) and Seniors footy (132-74), so there was a fantastic mood in the social rooms after the day's games! In particular Gordon Bamblett was excited by the wonderful team effort in U14s, and Jason Briggs applauded the great sportsman ship of the U17s with several players pulling on a jumper for the undermaned Tocumwal team. The celebrations were somewhat soured by a broken arm to key senior player Rex Taylor. The seniors will miss his drive on the wing for a month or so. We are very much looking forward to hosting Congupna for the annual Unity Cup on Saturday 30th April and we hope to see everyone there at what is sure to be a fantastic day celebrating the role and status of women in building strong families and communities. Until then have a choclaty and safe easter.

• HAPPY BIRTHDAY (Wednesday 13th April) - As a family Club, we like to celebrate important milestones. Accordingly we wish Kylie Briggs (Finance Manager) a fantastic 30th birthday today, Rick Montgomery (Senior football trainer) a belated 50th birthday for last week and Wes Murray (groundsman) a wonderful 65th birthday recently.

• Rumba on a roll (Monday 11th April) - Rumba senior football continued its winning season with a good win away to Deniliquin over the weekend. Significant contributions came from Braydon Williams, Ty Parsons, Rex Taylor, Justin Terlich and the wonderful ruck combination of Ben Cox and Travis Morgan. After a slow first quarter that saw us a few goals behind, we dominated most of the remainder of the match to run out 75 point winners. A great start from the reserves saw them post their first win of the year with significant contributions from Corey Walker, John Arnold, Stevie Nixon, Stuart Day, Dallas Terlich, Graham Weston and Neville Bamblett. Reserves will look to build their season from here. Junior footy enjoyed getting to Deni on Fri, helping them to prepare for Saturday, we continue to see good growth in, and commitment from our juniors that will hold them in good stead this year. C Grade again flew the flag high for netball, with a convincing win over a determined Deni. Junior netball is perfomring well and with continued focus on skills development will perform well throughout the year.

• Seniors big win (Monday 4th April) — Round 1 of the 2011 MFL season saw us host reigning premiers Moama. With a very strong 4 or 5 goal breeze against us we went in at quarter time 2 goals down, but turned that around in the second quarter to go in at half time 10 points up. Unfortunately the start of the second quarter saw our fullback Kirwin Moore suffer a badly broken ankle, though we're relieved to report Kirwin is out of hspital and recovering at home, we wish him a speedy recovery. Some early classic shirt fronts from Djaran Whyman and Brad Firebrace let the visitors know they were in for a hard day. And with great work at the back from Des Morgan, Jamie Atkinson, Corey Walker and Josh Atkinson wemade it hard for the visitors to score in the critical third quarter. Wth four majors up front from Eric Edwards, a couple each to Robert Power and Leroy Boland and many other major contributors, all the running was with Rumba in the second half. Some excellent work in the middle from Ty Parsons, Braydon Williams and Jarrod Atkinson gave Rumba the edge and we ran out clear winners, 19/20/134 to Moama's 12/7/79.

• Junior football and netball camps (Monday 28th March) — Our Munarra Youth Futures program recently took our junior footballers and netballers away for the pre-seaon camps. Raelene Nixon and Leanne Sangster took a group of 25 girls to Common Ground for a weekend of fun, activities and team work. From all reports the girsl had a wonderful time with lots of outdoor work, and some wonderful sharing times indoors. Kevin Collie and Daryl Sloan took a group of young men up to Red Gum retreat for a fun weekend of team building and development. In between fishing and bushwalking the young men participated in a range of development activities aimed at bringing them together for the year ahead and building on their capacity to support each other on and off the field.

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