Brothers in good stead after Cairns Hockey under-18 wins
Brothers president John Winkel believes a clean sweep of Cairns Hockey’s under-18s premierships could be the launching pad for the club’s sustained success in the future.
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Brothers president John Winkel believes a clean sweep of Cairns Hockey’s under-18s premierships could be the launching pad for the club’s sustained success in the future.
The Fury claimed the U18 men’s and U18A women’s premierships with wins over Saints in both deciders.
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The men’s side found two goals in as many minutes late in the game to take a 2-1 victory, while the women’s side needed a penalty shootout to put away its rivals 3-1.
“A lot of hard coaching’s gone into all these kids over the years and there’s a lot of regional and state representative players in there, so they’re very strong overall,” Winkel said.
He said the under-18s’ success could be put down to a focus on player retention.
“You’ve got to put coaches in place that just don’t burn kids out trying to win,” he said.
“They’ve got to retain all their kids because that kid who might not do much but he might have that one touch that puts it onto the good player who wins the game, that kid might end up being with your club for 30 years because of that experience.
“Most of the kids that were out there on the weekend we’ve retained since the under-8s. They all come through together and you train them up and then you have a good core of players, and that’s how you keep good teams on the paddock.”
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The club’s A-grade men’s and women’s sides, which were filled with junior players in the coronavirus-affected season, failed to win a game in 2020.
But Winkel was confident they could turn that around next season.
“We had a lot of our older, more established players decide not to come back after the (COVID) break,” he said.
“That’s three or four senior A-grade players who would really help those younger ones out.
“Hopefully they’ll be back next year and we’ll be more competitive.”
Originally published as Brothers in good stead after Cairns Hockey under-18 wins