The SA Heat 12’s and 15’s Boys and Girls teams as well as the 18’s Girls side received specialist coaching from a host of Australian coaches and players as part of a joint initiative between Touch Football South Australia and Touch Football Australia's AusSquad program.
Australian Women’s Open coach, Kerry Norman, and Australian Mixed Open coach, Bernie Morrison, as well as Australian players Ryan Pollock, Christian Frost, Stacey Lapham and Nicole McHugh were all in attendance to share their knowledge with South Australia’s junior representative teams.
Touch Football South Australia Sport Development Coordinator, Bri Wyatt, was full of praise for the weekend, saying it was a huge success.
“We had a horrible downpour for most of Saturday morning so that wasn’t nice. But the kids and the coaches went out and they still trained in the rain. The kids, considering the conditions, and the coaches as well, were terrific, they all soldiered on,” Wyatt said.
And it wasn’t just the players that benefited, with the coaches of the state teams making the most of the weekend, learning from some of the best in the business.
“All the coaches came up to me throughout the weekend and said that ‘this is terrific and exactly what they needed’ and also it reiterated their coaching styles, how they were going and what they were doing, if they were along the right lines and being able to benefit from that aspect. I got follow up emails from a couple of them earlier on this week saying that they benefited from it amazingly, they thought it was terrific.”
Each age division got different objectives out of the weekend, but all learnt plenty of new things that they can take to their respective upcoming events, the National Youth Championships for the 18’s Girls and the School Sport Australia Touch Championships for the 12’s and 15’s teams.
“The 12’s had stars in their eyes they were so excited that there were Australian players down there, they had their heroes that they loved spending time with. The 15’s were really good, they learnt a lot from it. I think they enjoyed being able to ask questions and be involved with the players and the coaches.”
“The 18’s were much more technical, they spent a lot of time with Bernie Morrison and Kerry Norman developing their tap move and their line attack and line defence and that sort of stuff so they got down to the technical side of it,” Wyatt said.
Having the Australian players and coaches attend the weekend was a huge buzz for the participants and having the chance to learn from some of Australia’s best was invaluable for both the teams and coaches.
“Ryan was terrific, he’s a teacher so he’s got a really good rapport and he got along really well with the kids, they loved him. Christian was really good, he speaks really well and relates well with the kids. The girls, Stacey and Nicole, they were really good. They spent a lot of time with the 12’s Girls and 15's Girls and tried to break things down and make it a bit easier and also making it fun for the kids. They turned some things into a relay and had a run around and they loved it. The Australian players were terrific and the coaches were always going to be good. Kerry’s a teacher as well so she breaks things down nicely for the kids and makes sure it’s done nicely,” Wyatt said.
