Junior touch to take centre stage

Narrabri Touch Inc’s Junior Touch Football competition will kick off on Monday at Cooma Oval.

The competition will feature a number of teams in several different grades.

Players will be placed into teams which will be sorted into age groups from kindergarten to Year 6.

Narrabri Touch Association committee member Joan O’Neill said touch footy is a terrific sport to be involved in.

“It’s good for both girls and boys,” she said.

“Everyone can play together in a mixed side.

“It teaches all the kids ball skills, teamwork, fitness and those types of life skills to commit themselves to a game.”

O’Neill said the game of touch is a great sport but no competition can run without the help of volunteers.

“We’re really stressing upon helpers, parents and any senior players that wish to help or referee,” said O’Neill.

“We need people to step up.

“If anyone wants to improve their refereeing skills they can come down and improve that way.

“All we ask is for people to help organise kids at the field and to help with substitutions to make sure everyone gets a fair run.

“They don’t need to have knowledge of touch, they just need to get them to the right field, get them organised and get the games running on time would be a big help.”

Recently the Narrabri Touch Inc and NSW Touch hosted a school gala day as a prelude to the coming junior touch season.

The day saw Narrabri Public School, Narrabri West Public School, Burren Junction Public School and Moree East Public School enjoy a day of non-competitive touch football.

NSW Touch game development officer Alexa Christodoulou contributed to the organisation of the event and told The Courier how important it is to introduce local kids to touch footy.

“We want to promote touch football in these local areas and get kids involved,” she said.

“Hopefully from these primary school gala days they get involved in touch football outside of school and in their local associations.

“Narrabri Touch Association is a great place for these kids to possibly start their career in touch football.”