Hockey: Bay juniors join best of NZ in camp

TALENTED: Garrick du Toit, in action for Midlands under-18s, is one of six Western Bay hockey players to attend a Future Black Sticks camp in Auckland. Photo / Anthony Yung

Six Western Bay hockey players are a step closer to fulfilling their dream of representing the Black Sticks at the Olympic Games.

Garrick du Toit, 17, Hamish McGeorge, 19, Joseph Lyons, 19, Wade Bennett, 17, Frances Davies, 18, and Amy Robinson, 19, will attend a Future Black Sticks development and selection camp in Auckland from December 17-21.

The camp is important towards selection in the Junior Black Sticks men's and women's teams to contest the Junior World Cup in Delhi, India later next year.

Bethlehem College student Garrick du Toit, who represented Midlands at under-18 and under-21 levels this year, is looking forward to working with so many good players.

"I am a bit nervous because it is my first camp and I know it is going to be a really hard time," du Toit said.

"But once I get up there I will be in my element and just have fun.

"The hope is to climb up the ranks and make the Juniors [Black Sticks]) and then the actual Black Sticks one day."

Hockey New Zealand's high performance director, Terry Evans, said the whole concept behind the Junior Black Sticks was identifying the young men and women with potential to become Black Sticks.

"What we are trying to do is expose them to a performance environment sooner rather than later, so we can really start to instil some of the concepts that are the basis of our national programme ways," Evans said.

"We want to get the group together as often as possible and then get some international competition. In January we take a men's and women's Junior Black Sticks team to Australia to compete against Australia and Japan.

"It is all about contesting and also physical testing and giving them feedback. We try to stress at the junior ages the way forwards.

"Some of them are in a really good environment, with a good structure around them, while some of the really good gems that we find around the country come from smaller towns, that don't necessarily have the coaching the bigger centres have."

Evans said Western Bay hockey players were as well off as any in New Zealand, as far as coaching and facilities are concerned.

"At under-18s we saw individually a bunch of really talented kids in the men's and the women's sides and there is no doubt that comes from some of the facilities there. You tend to see some of the better kids who have grown up with good coaching and good facilities are the standouts.

"The kids around that Tauranga area have benefited from some pretty good coaching but also the fact there are such good facilities."