Caption: North West player from Macintyre High School Callum Dolby looks for the pass.
Ten representative teams from across the state, including Metropolitan Sydney, Riverina and the far North Coast competed in the NSW Combined High School boys football championship over three day at SportUNE last week, with Sydney East crowned the State High Schools Champions.
All finals were played on Thursday, with the semi-finals played between the top two teams in each pool. These were dominated by the Sydney sides with Sydney East defeating South Coast 1-0 and Sydney North defeating Sydney South West 1-0.
The NSW North West side placed seventh in the overall competition defeating the North Coast 2-1. The team did very well over the three days with one win, one loss and three draws, two of these being against the top two sides.
“I am very proud of our guys, they played exceptionally well against very tough competition,” Michael Lord, coach of the North West side said.
“We are a reasonably young side, but very skilful and the passion, commitment and the never-give-up attitude is great. Many of the Sydney coaches were very impressed with the North West team’s spirit.”
Richard Rowlings, North West regional sports organiser was impressed with how well the fields at SportUNE held up.
“We will be holding the girls NSW Combined High Schools championships here next year, as this event has been such a success. The facilities at SportUNE are terrific,” he said.
At the presentations, first and second NSW Combined High Schools teams were selected to go on and play in the NSW All Schools Championships and from there a NSW State Team will be selected to play in the National Championships.