Academy for young talent
THE Goulburn Murray Youth Development Academy squads will showcase a host of Rochester Football Club players and coaches in 2017.
An under 13 group has been added with Rochester’s Kobyn James flying the flag for the Tigers in the inaugural Echucabased squad.
James will be joined by Lockington-Bamawm United’s Edward Brentnall when trainings commence March 1 at Echuca College.
Nine local players have been chosen in total with Rochester’s Sam Lees and Blake Evans and LBU’s Hugh Byrne joining the under 14 squad, while Adam McPhee, Angus Martin, Ben Atley and Nathan Kay will represent the under 15s for Rochester.
The parent induction and testing day will run from 4.30pm and will be overseen by Tiger’s senior players Dylan Cuttriss and Todd Woodfine as coaches of the Echuca training squad.
‘‘We (Cuttriss and Woodfine) both have backgrounds in primary school teaching which will go a long way in communicating with these young under 13 players,’’ Cuttriss said.
‘‘Communication is essential and we’ll be able to share our own football knowledge as well.
‘‘Our main aim with the under 13s is to keep footy growing and developing kids as quickly as we can to give them new skills and ideas to apply to their own footy and take back to their clubs.
‘‘We want to make them not only good players, but good role models as they move up the ranks too.’’
Cuttriss said it was especially important for himself to try and be a role model within the community and looked forward to the contributions from experts within their fields of coaching throughout the academy program.
2016 AFL Victoria junior coach of the year Phil Guthrie will head the under 13s coaching group and AFL Goulburn Murray football development manager Trevor Mellington said the coaching staffs had done an extensive amount of work in selecting the best squads possible.
‘‘We all recognise that selection processes are never an exact science,’’ Mellington said.
‘‘However, our coaches have done an outstanding job at trying to sift through all of the available data and observations to put together lists which they believe best reflect the depth and breadth of talent across the whole of the Goulburn Murray.’’
The academy talents are aimed towards developing players for the Bendigo Pioneers and Murray Bushrangers TAC Cup sides.