General News
15 February, 2025
Shelby’s international journey
By GARY WALSH PUT a lacquered piece of wood in Shelby Giorlando’s hands and something magical will happen. It always has, whether it be a hockey stick or a cricket bat, and now the Wedderburn teenager is making her mark on the international sports...
By GARY WALSH
PUT a lacquered piece of wood in Shelby Giorlando’s hands and something magical will happen.
It always has, whether it be a hockey stick or a cricket bat, and now the Wedderburn teenager is making her mark on the international sports stage.
Shelby, 19, has recently returned from touring Malaysia and Thailand with the Wattles, the Australian Country Under 21s hockey team.
It’s a long way from the hockey fields and cricket grounds of central Victoria to playing against the Thai national development team in the steamy heat of Bangkok, but Shelby took it all in her stride.
The team was drawn together from all over Australia, and while Shelby had played against most of them, she only trained with them once in Bangkok before facing matches against a Thai side many of whose members had played in the junior World Cup. The Thai team lives together and trains together:
“We met at the hotel, then got to train for half an hour because it was way too hot.
“The first games we maybe lost 3-0 or 4-0, but we scored in the game after that, and we gelled together really quickly.
“It was good to play against strong teams. In Malaysia we played against one poor team and our structures fell away.” Shelby has been involved in hockey since she was four, when the youngest of four children would follow her siblings to training: “I was their little practice person if they needed someone to have a hit with.”
By 12 she was in the Hockey Victoria academy, having been invited to a camp in Melbourne for what she thought was a training day.
It turned out to be a day on which coaches would choose the best juniors in the state, and Shelby was one of them.
That began the regular trek from Wedderburn to Melbourne – she estimates she has spent 24 hours in the car every week for matches and training since that first academy tryout, with mum Kim at the wheel.
Those endless hours can be a little tense if Shelby’s team has lost, when Mum gets the silent treatment.
Worse still was when sister Sam umpired a match in which Shelby played.
Big sister made a call on the field Shelby disagreed with, but she held herself back from sledging.
“I zipped it up because I knew we would have a bad ride home.”
Shelby made every junior state team from under 13 onwards and was picked in the national side that played in southeast Asia in January.
However, it wasn’t her first overseas experience with hockey, having toured the Netherlands as a 15-year-old in an Australian under 16 team.
There, one of the Dutch coaches made her an offer she could refuse – move to the Netherlands to play hockey.
The unexpected offer came because Shelby had mastered the “drag-flick”, a priceless skill in hockey, and unusual in someone so young.
Shelby said she watched players using the drag-flick at the Olympics, and taught herself the skill, which creates goalscoring opportunities from short corners.
Her talent with the drag-flick had already been noticed by her local coaches, and she went on to score seven goals – a tournament high – at the under 18 state championships, and five the following year.
Shelby now plays with Powerhouse St Kilda hockey club in Melbourne’s Premier League, where almost all her teammates are state representatives, and the standard is elite.
Her ambitions are sky high, but Shelby is smart enough to know she may not reach the pinnacle and play for the Hockeyroos.
“I want to take my hockey as far as possible, but if not, I’ll be really happy with what I’ve already done,” she said.
Even her study choices have been informed by a desire to remain part of the hockey family.
Shelby will soon begin a remedial massage TAFE course, and she hopes to turn that into a physiotherapy career.
If she can’t play for the Hockeyroos, perhaps she can work on their aches and pains.
But that is by no means the end of Shelby’s sporting story.
Her cricketing career began at 10 after father Steve unexpectedly bowled a ball at her while Shelby was wielding a hockey stick in the back yard – she met the ball with a cracking cover drive.
Steve was immediately on the phone to a cricket coach in Bendigo, and before she knew it, Shelby was playing for Strathdale Maristians.
“I didn’t even know what all the shots were called,” she said. “I just hated the idea of fielding so much because I knew I would get bored, so I became a wicketkeeper.”
That decision was confirmed when she first bowled in a match and almost hit herself in the face with the ball because she pitched it so short.
Shelby’s skills with the bat and behind the stumps have seen her named in the Bendigo league team of the year, and the Northern Rivers team of the year, which won a regional tournament last season.
She also shows plenty of courage.
Shelby broke a finger while keeping but strapped up her hand and subsequently made 55 runs batting through 25 overs.
She admits she can’t choose between hockey and cricket when it comes to a favourite sport.
“I didn’t think I would love cricket as much as I do, and I’m going to try to go as high as I can with it.”
The next step in cricket may be to the Premier League in Melbourne, with a Northern Rivers men’s coach suggesting she has the talent to thrive in the big smoke.
Whatever happens, this year-round sportswoman has the skills and determination to succeed at the elite level.
And there is always golf …