The community clubs behind the AFL’s 2022 flag stars

13 of Geelong’s 2022 AFL premiership team started their journey to the elite game at a Victorian community football club.

Community football is the heartbeat of so many towns and communities across Victoria, and play a huge part in developing the stars of the elite game, both AFL and AFLW.

Three successful Cats come from the Sunbury Lions Junior Football Club - the Guthrie brothers Cam and Zach as well as Mark Blicavs - while clubs in the Geelong Falcons NAB League program catchment region played a big part in the 2022 AFL flag, including St Josephs (Tom Atkins), Leopold (Jed Bews), Anglesea (Patrick Dangerfield), St Marys (Jack Henry), Grovedale (Gryan Miers), Cobden (Gary Rohan) and South Barwon (Tom Stewart). 

Jeremy Cameron (Dartmoor), premiership skipper Joel Selwood (Sandhurst) and emerging key back Sam De Koning (Mornington) also started playing the game at regional Victoria community clubs. 

Here are the grassroots clubs who played a big part in producing the latest batch of AFL flag heroes: