Xavier Quigley has certainly gone places since his time at the Officer Kangaroos. Here the 19-year-old shows off his skills in Chicago as part of his North American experience.
By David Nagel
XAVIER Quigley started playing football for the Officer Kangaroos in the Under 10s and like any other young fella just loved having a kick with his mates.
Life was good. He was lucky enough to play in two grand finals and even luckier enough to play in a winning one.
He was living every local boy’s dream but there was one small difference, he also dreamed of teaching the other kids how to play the game.
Quigley, now 19, didn’t know it at the time but that dream was about to come true on the other side of the world, in Toronto, Canada.
Quigley’s journey through his school years led a path to St Patricks College in Ballarat where he completed his VCE in 2010.
An old collegian contacted the school about the same time and offered three boys the opportunity to travel to Toronto to play Australian Rules in the growing Ontario Australian Football League.
The old collegian is also president of the High Park Demons in the Toronto Football League and wanted to improve the standard of the league by using Australian players to help train and teach the Canadians.
Quigley jumped at the opportunity.
“I couldn’t put my name forward quick enough,” Quigley said.
He and two others, one from Ballarat and one from Daylesford, headed to Toronto in March last year and started playing and working with the Demons.
As part of the experience the three also work for a company founded by Australians, AUSSIE X, that conduct school programs teaching football, netball and cricket. Quigley can’t believe his luck.
“The experience has been incredible, the Canadians are just so keen and eager to learn,” he said.
“The reaction of the school kids is just amazing, they don’t understand that we don’t wear any padding in Australian rules.
“We’ve improved the standard to the point where the Demons made the grand final last year for the first time in quite a few years.”
The club has a senior and reserve team and also a very competitive women’s team and as Quigley points out it has a real club feel about it.
“It’s just like playing at home, good club, good friends but we get the opportunity to go to places and see things that we never thought we would,” he said.
Quigley’s resume is building steadily – he represented Australia on Canada Day, has played in Chicago and this year will play in Philadelphia.
AUSSIE-X is now looking to expand and the 19-year-old could find himself in America or India spreading the Aussie Rules gospel.
This year the program that started with Quigley and co will continue, with two more boys from St Pats arriving shortly to experience life in Toronto.
