BY the time you read this, Cootamundra soccer star Jenna Collingridge will have landed in London ready to embark on an eight-game tour of the United Kingdom as part of the Australian Schoolgirls
soccer team.
It will be the second such national representative honour for Jenna who visited China and Japan on the corresponding tour last year.
Her selection in the 2012 side sees Jenna join a
distinguished list of players who have been chosen in back-to-back Aussie Schoolgirls sides, many of who have gone on to higher representative honours.
Arriving at Heathrow Airport at 4.45am (London time) on Tuesday, Jenna and her Australian
teammates will waste no time getting out on the pitch, with their first game of the three-week tour against North Hertfordshire College at Cambridge Road at 2pm Wednesday (London time).
The team will then travel by coach from London to Swansea for matches against a Welsh Schools and Welsh Colleges side before boarding a ferry early next week for the Irish leg of the tour which includes games at Cliftonville and Dublin.
The tour concludes with three more games on the mainland, against the Loughborough University on January 29, British Colleges two days later and finally the Watford Ladies at the Hertforshire Sports Village on February 1.
Prior to leaving the Australian squad met in Sydney for a number of training sessions at Macquarie University, with Jenna travelling up to Sydney from Wollongong where she spent last week training with the Illawarra Stingrays who Jenna will play for in this year’s NSW Women’s Premier League.