Juniors showing national pedigree

THE renaissance of Tasmanian’s girl’s hockey continues this week with 10 players from the highly successful under-15 state side that competed in April, stepping up to perform in the Australian U16 Championships in Newcastle starting this week.

Headlined by three-time Australian U15 Player of the Tournament Maddison Brooks, the squad also contains twin sister Taylor, Madison Clark, Isabelle Kruimink, Ansa Le Grange and Rebecca Paine.

These six players will also compete for Tasmania in New Zealand’s National Senior Tournament in October to fast-track their development.

“This group of 16 players are our future, with those six girls travelling to New Zealand as part of the resurgence of Hockey Tasmania’s women’s program,” Team coach Susan Brooks said.

“These girls, together with the U18s group coming through, are the key to our future with a number of them expected to play in the Tassie Tigers Hockey One side in the next year or so.”

“While this is a young team, with even a few players who will be eligible at this level for two more years, but they are very fit, very fast and developing rapidly.”

Brooks will implement a leadership group to drive the team’s culture and performance in Newcastle but says they have plenty of set plays up their sleeve as well.

“We have some strong penalty corner variations, although it has been difficult to rehearse as our key players are split around the state. We have around eight penalty corner variations but will be keeping it simple until we get a high number of penalty corners.”

Former Hockeyroo Bianca Langham-Pritchard will guide the U16 boys’ side that features Premier League regulars Magnus McCausland in goals, Oliver Pritchard, Angus Cooper, Jamie Mitchell and Tom Rasmussen.

Derwent, DiamondBacks and Burnie Baptist each have three club reps in the squad.

The Championships run from August 4 to 10.