Lacrosse Australia

Lacrosse Australia Mission

Lacrosse is recognised and culturally-embedded in Australian sports from a grassroots level, thriving at all age groups and skill levels, in addition to coaching and officiating. Lacrosse Australia provides leadership to the community through the delivery of quality services, programs and support in order to grow lacrosse at all levels, develop a sustainable membership base and achieve continued international success.

Lacrosse Australia Story

Lacrosse in Australia has a rich and celebrated history, beginning with the arrival of Canadian Lambton Le Breton Mount to Ballarat in Victoria during the gold rush of 1853, and from quite humble beginnings - a simple newspaper advertisement calling for players - the ‘Creator’s game’ commenced in Australia. By 1907, the game was being played at the MCG in front of over 16,000 spectators [remarkably, at a time when there were only 1 million people living in Victoria]; by 1914 lacrosse was being played by ANZAC troops in the sand at Gallipoli during WWI; and by the time of federation in 1974, lacrosse was being played in every state in Australia.

Today, many clubs are more than 100-years-old [not many other countries can lay claim to this outside of England and perhaps the US collegiate system] and Australians have been playing exciting, high-level lacrosse for decades with multi-generational lacrosse families often sharing the field. As one of the founding members of both of the former International Federations and one of the original pillars of international lacrosse [along with USA, Canada, England and the Haudenosaunee] Australia has been present for every significant world lacrosse development, including competing at every World Championship since inception. Through the years our nation has achieved great success on the world stage, continuing to ‘punch above our weight’ so-to-speak despite being a much smaller lacrosse nation in terms of active participants, with a fearless, attacking and aggressive style of play as our hallmark.

The Australian women are the only team ever to beat the USA in a senior title game, and the only other team to win the coveted Senior Women’s World Cup, twice [1986 and 2005]. We also took out the Under 19 Championship in 1995, with all three victories on US soil. Names like Sue Sofarnos, Mary Pickett and Colleen Hunter mark our creative ‘golden era’ of one-handed, behind-the-back play, while modern era players Jen Adams, Stacey Morlang, Sarah Forbes and Hannah Nielsen, and emerging stars like Maddison Copeland, have made us the face of lacrosse worldwide.

The Australian men have also enjoyed success both on the field and in the box, with multiple silver medals and names like Jeff Kennedy, Peter Cann [both World MVPs in their heyday], Darren Nicholas, Murray Keen plus Sport Australia Hall-of-Famers John ‘Keka’ Butkiewicz and Brian Griffin, paving the way for the new generation such as Callum Robinson, the ‘Big Koala’, who has emerged as one of our most marketable/aspirational athletes via the Premier Lacrosse League, in a time of increased focus on individual athlete brand/voice.

Most exciting is the fact that the past stars of our national teams are now leading and developing our current players. In 2019, both Australia’s U23 Men and U19 Women’s teams achieved success in winning silver and bronze medals respectively, and this success, in addition to the increased exposure to Australia’s best and finest, will place our next generation in good stead. Further, Australia has long been revered within the global lacrosse community for our competitiveness, resilience and tenacity, and US Lacrosse veteran and founder of the Premier Lacrosse League [PLL] Paul Rabil, is quoted as saying, “whenever we play Australia, we know they’re just going to keep on coming.” It is evident that no nation tests where another is at quite like Australia.

In addition to that fighting spirit born of the ANZACs, Australian lacrosse is underpinned by a sense of humility, pride, a deep-rooted passion for the game, a little bit of ‘larrikin’ and ‘underdog’, and most importantly, a tightly-held sense of mateship, family and community. It’s no coincidence that fans from other nations want to ‘party with the Aussies’ at every World Cup event!

We are now looking at writing the next chapters of the Australian lacrosse story; balancing our much-loved heritage and sense of tradition with a progressive new way of thinking about - and marketing - the sport for years to come. This includes the strong desire to continue to go the distance with the current lacrosse powerhouses, looking at how we can work together - at a club, state and National level - for the greater good of lacrosse in Australia, and examining our culture across the board to see where we can do better.

With a particular focus on developing the sport at its grassroots and attracting and retaining new participants through a sustainable membership base - recently lacrosse has been accepted into the Sporting Schools program, and since 2018 lacrosse has now been delivered to 44,118 students across 530 schools all over Australia - we are committed to passing on the rich history and ‘deep-rootedness’ of the sport as part of the education process for the ‘new generation’, as well as turning our national players into visible and accessible ‘heroes’ through the exciting new opportunities that social and other digital media afford.