IFAF media
Keilor’s Olivia Manfre was born to become an AFL player. Now, the 20-year-old finds herself in Malaysia, poised to proudly make her debut for the Australian women’s flag football national team.
Manfre recently completed a season in the Victoria Football League with Essendon, a team she joined at least as a registered supporter the day she was born, such was her parents’ passion for the sport. She began playing at the age of 12 and progressed to fulfil a destiny of representing the team she supports in the VFL, one step below the elite AFLW level she one day hopes to reach.
Like many athletes, Manfre sought out an off-season sport to help maintain her fitness and that’s when she caught the flag football bug.
“I played in some training sessions with a team called the Northern Raiders and absolutely fell in love with the sport,” she said.
“I was really intrigued to learn more, so I watched Mexico against the USA at the World Games and I knew straight away that I would have to give this a go. That led me to representing Victoria at the national competitions in July and as a result of that I was selected for the Australian team.
“It’s something I’m really proud of and I’m really excited about and it’s all quite surreal that I’m about to represent my country.”
Manfre trained with Australian men’s national team coach Jamie Stafford and some of the men’s team players based in Victoria, as well as with the Melbourne Mets in preparation for this weekend’s tournament.
Under head coach Paul Manera, Australia’s original gridiron export to the United States and an experienced coach in both tackle and flag, Manfre joined her nation’s squad that arrived in Malaysia several days ahead of the upcoming International Federation of American Football Asia Oceania Flag Football Championship to acclimatise and hold a pre-tournament camp.
“I haven’t been overseas before so that in itself is going to be an exciting experience,” she said before the team headed for Kuala Lumpur.
“I’ve come from a team sport and love that environment, so the pre-camp gives us a great opportunity to get to know each other. In my experience a team that’s really connected is better able to face adversity and to bounce back if they’re losing and I think that’s really important. We’re all going to work really hard and that’s going to give us that edge if we really need to step up to win.”
Australia are newcomers to the international flag football arena, but several of Manfre’s teammates and those on the men’s roster boast experience of playing in IFAF World Championships in the tackle discipline. ‘Quarterback Casey Cubis played at the 2017 IFAF Women’s World Championship in Canada, while fellow signal caller Danielle De Groot represented her nation in Finland last year. Kodie Fuller, Dania Herdman and Pier Pritchard have similar experience.
“I’ve been trying to get as much information from them as possible,” Manfre said.
“They have so much knowledge of the sport and learning from them is really going to help me, not just with football skills but also playing for our country.
“You can tell when we’re training who the experienced players are and I’ve been asking them questions to make me better as an athlete.”
Manfre believes her success playing Australian Rules Football will translate to flag football, where she lines up as a wide receiver.
She hopes that with one season ending just before the other begins will not cause future conflicts, though her VFL season ended slightly prematurely as the Bombers failed to advance to the Grand Final.
“This year the two sports never crossed,” she said.
“As soon as I finished the footy season, I found myself in Sydney a week or two later. I didn’t have to worry about the crossover and in terms of fitness I transitioned over straight away.
“As a receiver in flag football it definitely links with the position I play in the VFL where I’m a forward. I do a lot of marking, so that’s my style of play which one hundred percent definitely helps.
“One thing I’ve been working on now is my route running. It’s very different from the leading patterns we run in footy. I love playing them both so much and hope there’s no clash next year.”
