On Friday, March 9, five of our Gloucester Hockey Club juniors made the journey down to Narellan for a hockey tournament. 

This was the culmination of the training through a COD program run by Hockey NSW. Centres were set up around the State to train both boys and girls to become part of under 13 and under 15 year olds teams.

Taree conducted a training centre in conjunction with Port Macquarie.

The girls and boys then combined forces to form a team to represent the Mid North Coast.

The Gloucester players, consisting of Dean Germon, Nick Maslen, Toreen Denyer, Elyssa Keen and Darcy Fry, were among 94 other teams competing in high paced modified matches.

The teams played from 8am through to 7.30pm and by Sunday afternoon were well and truly exhausted.

The boys team had great success, helped along by some junior State players leading the charge. The boys team only lost two of their nine matches.

The girls, although not as successful on the scoreboard, showed tremendous improvement throughout the tournament, improving with each match and demonstrating great tenacity.

The event was an opportunity for the young players to showcase all of their training and they each did it with great sportsmanship, dedication and respect.

This tournament has preceded the 2018 hockey competition which begins in early April and runs through to September.

These five juniors are part of the first Gloucester junior hockey team to represent in the upcoming Manning Valley competition while also participating in the Gloucester Cook Park competition.

Many of the Taree coaches and officials have expressed great enthusiasm in seeing Gloucester come aboard. Playing on the turf has allowed these juniors to take the next step up in the development and improvement of their skills.