30 young footballers from Fitzroy Valley and surrounding communities made the long journey to Kununurra on the weekend to take on other Colts from East and West Kimberley.

Central Kimberley Football and Basketball League football manager Geoff Davis told National Indigenous Times the colts championship was an important event that had been hindered in recent years by COVID and floods that hit the Valley in January 2023.

"The event was run by the Garnduwa mob in Broome. What happens is over the past 20 years or so we have had a colts set up that identifies kids to be able to end up at Claremont (in the WAFL) and from there they can go through to the AFL, that's the talent pathway," he said.

"Garnduwa, who are the regional Indigenous sport and recreation organisation, has facilitated those colts championships over the years but over the past three or four years it has been severely impacted by COVID and also, in our case, the flooding in the Fitzroy Valley which stopped everything. So really, since about 2019 the whole colts talent ID program has been really curtailed.

"This was our first attempt to get back to normal, and it was done on the fly to a great extent because of the issues in the Kimberley with the wet season and with remote communities being able to get into town to be seen and picked in teams is quite difficult."

Mr Davis said most of the young players who made the near seven-hour drive to Kununurra "play in the community teams in the men's competition, so we hadn't even seen them until a week ago".

"We were able to selected a squad of 30 kids who volunteered their names or who registered for the senior men, which included seven 16 year-olds and five 17 year-olds and the rest were 18 or 19," he said.

"Most of them hadn't participated in any of these sort of talent ID trips before because 2019 was the last time we did it, they were real young kids when we stopped.

"This is the rebuilding program - we asked the organisers if we could take 30 instead of 25 kids, including some of these younger kids to give them a taste of what it was like."

The youngsters made the journey with help from local organisations and local people.

"We ended up taking 30 kids on two buses, supported by Marra Worra Worra who lent us a bus and Bundu who helped us purchase a bus - they sponsored us $50,000 enabling us to buy a secondhand coaster bus, and then the Bridge Alliance lent us a car so we were able to have a support vehicle that went with us, which was really good," Mr Davis said.

"We had a couple of Indigenous coaches from the senior men's teams, and three other support staff, a couple of local businessmen who put up their hand to support, one to drive one of the buses and the other looking after the welfare of the guys."

Mr Davis said the boys did themselves proud on the journey.

"We stayed in Kununurra at the worker's hostel they've got, so they had good accommodation, and some of the humbug we have had in past times didn't happen. The boys behaved in a respectful manner and looked after the accommodation and the vehicles, and we got them all back home. And they played some pretty good footy while they were at it," he said.

"They really showed their potential. None of them are fit, and a few of them smoke, the West Kimberley and East Kimberley beat us, but our boys were tenacious and showed some skill, but basically ran out of legs in the end.

"West Kimberley mob were very good, the Broome-based team, and it shows what you can do when you can get a team together and train, and have a junior competition that is operating; the basics are set in and they play better footy when they get older."

Mr Davis described the event as a rebuilding exercise and a win for the community.

"We might not have won the footy, but we certainly won over the boys - they were very good, and a few leaders popped up who we hadn't seen before, who took responsibility and said they now want to continue playing some games against other towns - because there's no formal colts competition in any of the leagues here," he said.

"It's the beginning of some sort of competition beyond the colts championship, the boys are talking about the whole squad having the opportunity to play say a squad from Derby or a squad from Halls Creek during the year more often so they get more games and they combine together as a team."

Mr Davis described sports as a great vehicle for youth engagement and development in the Valley.

"Footy and basketball are the two main sports a lot of the Indigenous boys and girls around the Valley have played, they idea to engage these mob longer in a season, have a footy season then a basketball season under the same rules and set up. We had a meeting of all of the managers last year and decided to incorporate basketball into it, at the end of this season we will offer the same clubs positions for teams but in basketball," he said.

"One of the things we are really pushing and it has come to the fore more since COVID and the flood that hit here, the footy is the vehicle for life skills and development. I had two boys who had never worked a day in their life, they're 19, who asked me to see if we can find a job for them. These things are critical.

"Fitzroy has a bad name around the place for kids running amuck, but the 30 boys that we took - from 16 to 19 - the idea is how do we continue that focus beyond that one game, also linking it in to training, job opportunities, school. We are hoping to use football as the vehicle for that."