Students from St Philomena’s Primary School, Moree Public School and Gravesend Public School headed to Ron Harborne Oval on Thursday, November 16 for the two-hour clinic where Australian men’s hockey team player, Matt Willis from the Kookaburra Squad was among the instructors. 

“We try to get to rural and remote communities with multicultural populations that might not be able to access the coaching, equipment and programs that children from bigger centre can,” Hockey NSW participation manager Blair Chalmers said. “It is a great opportunity to expose students to hockey where Hockey NSW normally may not have the resources available to provide such a clinic.”

All clinic activities are designed to be non-oppositional and all the sporting equipment is provided. 

The clinics are run jointly with the Macquarie Sports Foundation (MSF) to provide free gear to the students – a Macquarie Sports-branded stick, ball and hat – providing an inlet and cost reduction for those kids who would like to pick up the sport after the session.

The remaining sticks were given to the schools to use as part of their sporting programs.

This is the second year Hockey NSW has partnered with MSF to run clinics in regional and remote areas. Last year clinics were held in Narromine and Cowra, and this year Moree and Inverell were chosen.

“We hope clinics like this will raise the profile of hockey in schools and increase registration for local hockey clubs,” Mr Chalmers said. 

In addition to Kookaburra Matt Willis, NSW under 18s player Darby Chalmers and NSW under 15s player Nathan Czinner assisted with the coaching.

The players taught local students a number of key skills including how to dribble, block and trap.

The Hockey NSW team were in Inverell on Wednesday.