THE North Coast Force Under 17 Boys have gone undefeated during the Northern NSW AFL Championships in Coffs Harbour.

The Under 17s Boys and the other North Coast Force junior representative teams took on teams from the Central Coast, Illawarra, Hunter Country, and Hunter Metro.

The North Coast Force Under 17 Boys started their championships in dominant style, with three wins on the opening day, beating Central Coast by 90 points, Illawarra Storm by 49 points, and Hunter Metro by 38 points.

The Force continued their unbeaten run into the second day with a draw against Hunter Country, and a 34-point win against the Illawarra Storm.

They finished the championships in fine fashion, with a 35-point win against Hunter Metro at the Ce.x Coffs International Stadium.

The Force started their final match strongly with two quick goals before Hunter Metro worked their way back into the match and the Force took a 10-point lead into half-time.

The Force would make their move as the second half began with two early goals, as their efficiency inside the forward 50 proved too much for the visitors to handle, with the Force kicking 9.1 for the match.

North Coast Force Under 17 Boys head coach Luke Matthews explained how his side managed to remain undefeated at the championships.

“We focus on our process and structure, and our planning, we always look at our controllables and take care of all that, then the wins are a by-product of that,” he said.

“We have been consistently starting well, and pushing ourselves to try to get that second half of footy going.

“We had a solid midfield, and we had a lot of guys we could rotate through the midfield, and normally when you play rep footy the guys who are selected, they do predominantly play midfield in their local teams, so we’ve always got a heap of guys who can play through there, we were good in there and we backed ourselves.

“It was great to see we had a couple of really good tall guys this time, as that has always been one thing we have struggled with,” said Matthews.

“We had plans in place and structural stuff in the contest, and we also had some zone kind of work set up too for keeping it in our forwards.”

The Force coach said there had been huge growth in the game on the North Coast.

“I went back over to Western Australia 12 months ago, and I’ve been away from it a bit, and coming back it was an opportunity for me to just get my nose back in it with rep footy,” he said.

“And just being away from it for that period of time I’ve noticed a huge growth overall, not just in the men’s and women’s.

“I’ve been in this area for over 25 years and when I started here it was a rugby league town, and now AFL is just booming and really growing.”

By Aiden BURGESS