U15 & U18 National Championship Wrap-Up

Victoria came out strong in both Bathurst and Launceston over 9 days of Australian Championship Hockey that concluded last week.

After a year of COVID restrictions, Hockey Australia were again able to present national championship hockey with the U15’s taking to the field in the shadow of the iconic Mt Panorama (Bathurst), whilst the nations best U18 talent descended on Launceston.

Not since the indoor championships in January 2020 has our state colours gone into battle. “More than anything we are just grateful, almost relieved, to finally have our kids playing representative hockey again”. Hockey Victoria Athlete & Coaching Manager, Phil Burrows was a keen observer down in Launceston, “Our kids have worked really hard in preparation for these events, having gone through draft camps, academy and then selections. We managed to get a good block of work into them”.

James McCallum from the High Performance team was in Bathurst, “these kids put themselves right at the sharp end of the tournament and had high hopes leading int the semis. Our boys picked up a bronze and the girls fought incredibly hard for 4^th. For me one of the most pleasing observations has been the manner in which our players, coaches and staff have embraced our HP core values. They really did make us all very proud”.

One question that hovered over the Victorians was, what impact would no competitive hockey have on our teams at these events? With Victoria going through extended lockdowns throughout 2020, it meant that our kids had not played any competition since 2019. Despite this lack of match conditioning, the Vics excelled during the preliminaries, putting themselves into the semi-finals and therefore championship contention in all four divisions.

“Yes its true, no hockey since 2019 was not ideal, but once we put ourselves in the frame for a shot at these titles the expectation and desire is no different from any other year”, said HV High Performance Manager Lachlan Anderson. “We do recognise the unique challenges we faced and to have Victoria in all four semis and to actually medal in three of the four divisions is an amazing performance by these teams”.

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U18 Link

U15 Link