The film opens on a broken-down bus filled with a country football team. The steam pouring from the engine means one thing: they aren’t going to make the final match. The captain puts in a phone call to their club president with the bad news. Rather than forfeiting, the club president comes up with a plan.   

We see her race around the town, picking up a motley crew – the pub owner, the policewoman, the priest, the stay-at-home dad, the delinquent, the Chinese restaurant server, the mechanic, amongst others.   

It’s a bizarre looking team of back-ups who take the field. But they all have one thing in common – team spirit.   

As the other team smirks at this odd bunch of ring ins, the pub owner smiles back, revealing a few missing teeth. This isn’t his first rodeo on the field… 

Our line “This isn’t country football. This is footy country.”   

To most of the world football = soccer, but confusingly in Australia we use ‘footy’ to refer instead to AFL (Australian rules football, the dominant code in the states of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia) and NRL (rugby league, the dominant code in New South Wales and Queensland). 

Telstra is Australia’s largest telecommunications network, covering a million square KM more of the country than any other network, mainly in regional and rural areas. 

And while the vast majority of Australians live in metropolitan and coastal areas, culturally, country Australia holds a special place in the nation’s heart. It is the spiritual home of the Australian spirit and character – one of tenacity, optimism, humour, and hard work. 

It’s also where the authentic ‘heart’ of football is, in grassroots clubs where the community rallies together whether it’s on the pitch, supporting from the sidelines or volunteering at the club canteen.   

And country footy is also the lifeblood of the game nationally. While just 28% Australians live in regional and remote areas, 50% Dally M Winners (NRL player of the season) and 60% Brownlow Medal Winners (AFL player of the season) are from the country.  

In choosing to eschew footage of star players and base our football story in its rural heartland, we were tapping into something deeper and more relatable to Australian audiences: the belief we approach sport in the same way we approach life – show.  up, give it everything, help each other out.