The Western side made a major statement at the NSW Combined High Schools Boys Hockey Championships at the Cooke Hockey Complex yesterday.

The hosts got off to a rollicking start as they look to go one better than last year’s grand final appearance, securing two huge wins against Sydney North and Sydney West to get things underway.

After going a goal behind in the tournament opener to Sydney West, they stormed back in that match with an avalanche of goals, eventually winning 12-2.

Not that it was ever in doubt, but they proved the first result was no fluke by smashing Sydney North 8-0 in their afternoon match.

The Western team includes four Bathurst players in Jaidyn Hunt, Isaac Darlington, Justin Mellor and Kyle Reardon.

Yeoval-based coach Scott Olsson was delighted with the statement his team made at their first opportunity.

“The magnitude of the wins was probably a bit of a surprise given that it was the first time this team has played together,” he said.

“Day two will provide probably a bigger test of how good we actually are, but it was still nice to come out and play as well as we did.

“We dominated possession in both games and created a lot of goal scoring opportunities and when you create enough, you start to capitalise and that’s what happened in both games. Sydney West scored first in the opening game and put us on the back foot a little bit, but we took our time and were able to regroup, we fought back to control the game and once we got on top we stayed there.”

The Western side were led brilliantly by Lithgow’s Lachlan Sharp who produced a strong captain’s performance, while his schoolmate Sam Gray was another standout, as well as vice-captain Hayden Dillon from Orange High.

“Each of those guys were very impressive, but we didn’t really have any bad players and the spread of goal scorers was very even across everyone,” Olsson said.

“The matches on day two against South Coast and North West will be a step up I’d say from what we faced today.

“South Coast were semi-finalists last year and they have a very strong team this year, they deserve to be the competition favourites and are going to be hard to get past.

“In the other pool North Coast and Hunter both look strong, but it is a very even group. If we can get one win from these two games that should be enough for us to get through to the semi-finals on Thursday morning.”