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Last week Armidale again hosted the Northern NSW Football High Performance Camp at the University of New England attracting the region’s top girl football players for an intensive program and trial for selection in Northern NSW State sides to compete at the FFA National Junior Championships in April and the Westfield National Youth Championships for Girls in July.
High Performance Manager for Northern NSW Football David Smith put the girls through their paces and liked what he saw.
“It has been a really excellent camp with 60-odd girls here in three different age groups training really hard,” said Mr Smith said.
“The girls have held up really well, we have been doing three sessions a day in quite warm conditions,” he said.
“Our catchment spreads from the Tweed in the north, to Moree, Wee Waa and down to Morrisett in the south, over fifty percent have travelled at least five hours to get here.
“The coast players are once again well represented and playing some strong football.
“There is a difference between the inland players and coast players, but that comes down to density of numbers,” Mr Smith said.
“When you have a population centre like Newcastle where there is a little bit higher standard of competition weekly, it makes a bit of a difference with a larger number of players competing.
“In the girls we don’t notice it as much as the boys. There is always the opportunity for the girls in the country, we have good numbers here from inland towns.
“We always challenge to be in the top four of the National Championships and that’s come from the quality of players that we have both on the coast and in the country,” he said
Story: Jo Harrison
