Historic day for Qantas Socceroos and Westfield Matildas

Australian Football History was created on Wednesday when the Qantas Socceroos and the Westfield Matildas trained together for the first time ever on the Gold Coast.

Australian Football History was created on Wednesday when the Qantas Socceroos and the Westfield Matildas trained together for the first time ever on the Gold Coast.

In a rare coordination of travel schedules, the Qantas Socceroos are in camp on the Gold Coast to prepare for their important AFC Asian Cup 2011 Qualification match against Indonesia, whilst the Westfield Matildas are also there to prepare for their two international friendlies against DPR Korea with all matches to be played in Brisbane next week.

FFA Strength and Conditioning coach Darren Burgess took both squads through a thorough warm-up before the players broke into mixed groups for Tom Sermanni (Westfield Matildas Head Coach), Robbie Hooker (Westfield Matildas Assistant Coach), Henk Duut (Qantas Socceroos Assistant Coach) and Graham Arnold (Qantas Socceroos Assistant Coach) to work on passing drills. The Goalkeepers of each squad were also put through a rigorous combined training work-out with Tony Franken (Qantas Socceroos goalkeeper coach) and Paul Jones (Westfield Matildas).

The training session allowed the teams to test their ability against their counterparts from the opposite sex with all walking away with a better appreciation of each others talents.

Check out the pictures of the training session here.