PENRITH Panthers staff were on hand to help teach Central West juniors and coaches at Morse Park on Tuesday.
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In the first week of a month-long Bathurst Cubs program, Panthers’ Ben Harden, Sam Jones, Jim Jones and Matt Cameron were in the city to help provide pointers to the region’s players and mentors.
The program will see the Central West coaches put into place the drills and techniques taught by the Panthers staff over the coming two weeks, before the Penrith crew return to assess the group’s progress.
Game Development Officer for Western NSW, Dave Elvy, said the Penrith staff were thrilled with the turnout for the opening week of the program.
”We got a lot of encouraging feedback from the Penrith Panthers. They’ve been posting all about this on social media. Phil Gould and Bryan Fletcher – who are the two big guns at Penrith – were thrilled with the way it looked and with how many people turned up,” he said.
“It’s been a really great program for the few years it has been run.”
Since its inception the Bathurst Cubs program has focused in equal measure on assisting both players and coaches.
As a bonus, players and coaches also receive training jerseys as part of the program.
Elvy said the partnership between Bathurst and the Panthers is growing strong enough that new pathways are being opened for people to explore with the Sydney club.
“If any of the coaches want to get in contact with any of the Panthers staff to ask any questions then they are able to do that,” he said.
“There’s even the chance for them to explore the Penrith Panthers Academy if they wish to do so. We’ve already seen that happen with a lot of schools, for example.
“Their relationship with our area is getting stronger and stronger each year.”
Last Tuesday the travelling Panthers contingent helped lay the groundwork for the following three weeks.
Juniors ranging from under 13s through to 16s were split into groups to learn drills, as coaches were taken through how to set up and run each station.
“The 13s and 14s combined for an hour, as did the 15s and 16s. Sam Jones then took the kids through a warm up. Ben Harden, who works at the Panthers academy as is the SG Ball coach, took our coaches through the drills and explained how they were going to run them,” Elvy said.
“They set up different stations for the kids to go through … and now we’ll advance them through those drills each week.
“What they were showing them was exactly the same things as they take their NRL players through, and that’s really good for our players out here to see that. It shows that even at that level there’s still a lot of focus on the basics of the game.
“There was a lot of good feedback from everyone. Our coaches were very appreciative and thankful for what the Penrith coaches showed them. If they get taught the right things then that rubs off on our players.”