A year after entering a team in the Sydney International Cup for the first time, the Northern Tasmanian Junior Soccer Association is back this year with three.
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Lynden Prince coached an under-11 side last year and will return in the under-12 age group with an under-13 side coached by Nick Lanau-Atkinson and Mark Littlechild’s under-11s also taking part.
”Our feedback to the association last year was about how good it was and when I got the coaching role again this year I said that’s where we wanted to go again,” Prince said.
“The quality of the players is just so high compared to what we see here and they are so professional about it.”
The three gold representative teams warmed up by taking part in last weekend’s Launceston Tournament and Prince said Sydney is a similar round robin format.
“It has teams from New Zealand, Brazil and all over Australia so is a really good mix.
“It’s like a mini-World Cup. In each age group there are groups where the top two go through and the others play off so all teams play six games.
“We have a bit of an opening ceremony on Friday and then one game each, a couple on Saturday and again on Sunday and then semi-finals and finals on Monday. The age groups are from under-10 to under-15 so there are a lot of games going on.”
The tournament comes as two more NTJSA rep sides, Justin Dyer’s under-16s and the under-14s coached by Richard Jones, complete their involvement in the Champions Cup on the Gold Coast.
Rob Shaw
Heralding the impact of Tasmanian sport without saying "punching above its weight" is not as easy as it sounds.
Heralding the impact of Tasmanian sport without saying "punching above its weight" is not as easy as it sounds.
