International Events
TRANS TASMAN RIVALRY ALIVE AND WELL |
|
| The Australian National Touch teams' preparations for this year's Trans Tasman Test series have been less than perfect. A threat earlier this month by the New Zealand Touch Association to withdraw from the tournament caused the cancellation of important training camps. "We (Australian Touch) came to an agreement with New Zealand two years ago to play two Series. The first, which we won, last year in New Zealand and again this year in Coffs Harbour." Said Australian Touch Association Assistant Chief Executive Peter Topp. "On the 12th of August New Zealand indicated they were going to withdraw from the tournament. The problem for them was they had a lot of players withdraw from the tournament with several of them having conflicting representative duties in other sports." "Unfortunately for us we had to cancel training camps for our men's and women's teams. Luckily our mixed team had met for a training camp the week before." Australian Touch eventually managed to convince their New Zealand counterparts to go a head with the three test series to be played in Coffs Harbour on consecutive nights from the 19th of September. "We had several discussions and finally managed to convince them to continue with the initial agreement," said Topp. "Unfortunately by that stage it was too late for us to reschedule the training camps." Australian Men's Open team coach Ian Stanley believes although the camps were important for the team's preparation they will still be ready come the first test. "It is a bit of a hiccup for us," said Stanley, "we are currently making some changes from last year in the way we play the game." "We instigated some changes at our first camp back in July and we were hoping to consolidate on those changes at the last camp." "The team will get together on the 14th of September and that will give us five days to iron out any problems." National Women's coach Peter Bell agrees while missing the camp was a set back plenty of work has been done to assure his team will be prepared. "It is a bit of a nuisance, to miss a camp only a month out, but I feel we have done plenty of work to cope. Of course if we lose I will blame the missed camp," jokes Bell. "We have pretty much the same team as last year with only a couple a changes. Also this is the first time the team has had more Queensland players than New South Wales Players so I have been able to do a fair bit of work with the bulk of the team up here in Brisbane." Luckily for the Australian Mixed Team they had a camp the week before the controversy. Mixed Team coach Tony Trad feels it was a blessing to get the extra camp in. "It is more difficult for us than it is for the men's and women's team," said Trad. "We have about ten changes from last years team. Losing players up to the men's and women's teams as well as to injury." "It was extremely important for us to have the camp so I guess we were lucky in the fact we had our camp earlier than the other teams." The Trans Tasman Touch Series will be played in Coffs Harbour from the 19th to the 21st of September coinciding with the national youth championships. |
