By TANIA PHILLIPS
THREE Tweed Coast sisters are set to represent Queensland at national hockey championships in Tasmania this week.
It’s rare enough for a family to have one state representative but three all at once is a huge effort … mind you the Fitzpatrick family, seem to be born to play hockey.
Dad Scott is a former Australian representative and mum Margie played NHL while all of their aunts, uncles and a lot of cousins are also hockey players.
Although still in their teens, the two oldest sisters, Savannah and Madison have been chosen in the open women’s side for the Australian Hockey League (AHL) while youngest sister Kindra is in the under-13’s side also competing in Hobart.
Defensive player Madison, 16 – a shadow Queensland player last year – said she was relieved when her sister joined the squad last week. Striker Savannah, 18, had been named as a reserve for the Queensland team and had been picked up to play for the Northern Territory Pearls. However an injury to the Queensland team saw her rushed into the team.
“We are due to play Northern Territory first up,” Madison said.
“We would have been playing each other … she’s a striker and I’m defense so we would have been playing directly against each other. We know each other’s game really well it would have been quite a battle.”
The young Tweed player, who played in the men’s competition this year in Tweed, said she was thrilled to be selected in such a tough team.
The Scorchers are always in the top three in the National Hockey league and are often the ones to beat.
“It is going to be quite an honour,” the young defender, who started playing at around three said.
Meanwhile Tweed will also be well represented in the Queensland Blades team which starts its Australian Hockey League campaign in Melbourne this week.
Tweed’s Jake Farrell has been chosen for the Northern Territory while his friends Andrew Butturini (brother of Australian representative Matthew Butturini who will play for NSW in the same team) and Dylan Wotherspoon will be in the Queensland Blades side. They all play for Easts in the Brisbane Hockey League, which won its first grand final in eight years last weekend.
Farrell and Wotherspoon won the AHL title with Queensland in 2012, while goalkeeper Butturini is set to make his AHL debut.
The trio join long-time member and former Kingscliff player Jason Wilson in the Queensland side.
