{"id":166569,"date":"2025-09-24T20:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T20:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/166569\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T20:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T20:21:14","slug":"afl-cape-york-medallists-show-strength-on-and-off-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/166569\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL Cape York medallists show strength on and off field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18625\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-18625 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Ashandra-Bond-scaled-e1758446246625-1200x988.jpeg\" alt=\"Ashandra Bond Kathleen Peter Medalist\" width=\"1200\" height=\"988\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-18625\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ashandra Bond (centre) received this year\u2019s Kathleen Peter Medal after emulating the AFL Cape York alumnus at the Under 17 Pacific Nations Challenge in Cairns. Photo: Supplied.<\/p>\n<p>Young AFL stars in the making are following in the footsteps of their predecessors as they shine on and off the field.<\/p>\n<p>The Cape York Crusaders, a team made up of AFL Cape York boarding students from across the region, were invited to the Under 17 Pacific Nations Challenge in Cairns earlier this month \u2013 and the Crusaders girls took top spot as carnival champions.<\/p>\n<p>Two standout players were selected by the AFL Cape York coaching staff to be awarded the Kathleen Peter Medal (female) and Thomas Holland Medal (male).<\/p>\n<p>AFL Cape York regional development co-ordinator Kieran Sciberras said each medal carried the name of a legendary alumnus who had excelled after going through the Crusaders program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re named after two former players who\u2019ve come through the pathway,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTommy Holland, one of the original Crusaders, and Kathleen Peter, one of the first female players who made it all the way up to Queensland when it was only boys really playing the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ashandra Bond was this year named Kathleen Peter Medallist; Corey Anderson received the Thomas Holland Medal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs well as displaying responsibility, pride and respect, Tommy\u2019s physicality and mental toughness during his playing days were something Corey emulated really well,\u201d Sciberras said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was a standout among his peers. He played very well throughout the carnival and did all the right things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the Kathleen Peter Medal was especially important in showing girls they had the potential to excel in the sport as much as the boys.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can\u2019t be what you can\u2019t see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s really good to see, especially in the women\u2019s space, more female footballers taking to the game and being able to emulate role models like Kathleen Peter who have paved the way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGoing from not having an under-12s all-girls team to now having under-12s, under-14s and under-17s girls \u2026 they\u2019re getting the same opportunities as the boys now, which is really promising.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-18626\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-18626 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Corey-Anderson-scaled-e1758506236504-1200x654.jpeg\" alt=\"Corey Anderson and Thomas Holland\" width=\"1200\" height=\"654\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-18626\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thomas Holland Medallist Corey Anderson (left) stands alongside award namesake and original Crusader player Thomas Holland. Photo: Supplied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ashandra Bond (centre) received this year\u2019s Kathleen Peter Medal after emulating the AFL Cape York alumnus at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-166569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}