Home-grown winners
IT is an initiative which has the potential to transform Townsville sport.
In collaboration with Queensland TAFE, the region’s rugby union, rugby league, netball and football bodies are set to launch an Academy of Sport and provide access for young athletes to elite level coaches.
Ultimately, the goal is to provide recent high school graduates with the tools to thrive both on the field and in the job market, and not feel forced to move to metropolitan areas.
Participants will also be required to partake in a tertiary studies throughout the year to be eligible for the Academy, and will receive assistance to juggle the two responsibilities.
Townsville and District Rugby Union operations coordinator Daniel Withers said they wanted to engage out-oftown elite coaches, as well as provide the resources to allow local mentors to upskill.
Every player who comes through the academy will be devised a plan based on what their ambitions are — whether that is making their club’s Agrade side or one day pulling on the Wallabies colours.
He said individual programs would be tailored to each athlete in a way which balances their sporting pursuits with their studies.
“Essentially we see the program as an awesome opportunity to partner with a registered training organisation to be able to run an Academy with some of our school leavers … to further their skills and make them more employable in the future,” Withers said. “It’s something that will allow us to spend more time with the young athletes to be able to develop them and do areas of strength and conditioning we perhaps haven’t been able to do in the past.
“Often their parents are here and their job prospects are here. I think it’s more important for the kids leaving school to stay in the system … it’s something that’s a bit more professional and has that vocational training so they can access employment.
“It’s developing the athlete to go onto the next level and periodise the training around that so they’re at their fittest and strongest when those opportunities arise, and balance that with their education. We’re looking at an approach that caters for the athlete through the whole calendar.
“We see it as a really important program to develop our rugby players to contribute to the rugby community, but also the Townsville community as outstanding members.”
Withers said they had begun recruiting for the rugby union side of the Academy, with a goal of signing up 20 athletes by the start 2022.
He said while they were eager to provide top line individual coaching, they needed to maintain some sort of team environment to ensure a lack of motivation was not an issue.
“Obviously we want to recruit at the moment to see where those students are,” Withers said. “I would love to have had this when I finished school. I was too young to go to uni so it would’ve been a great opportunity to spend a year or two to focus on rugby and get some (employment) skills.”