WAYNE Wright freely admits he is no expert on the indoor brand of hockey, but he knows talent when he sees it and talent is exactly what he has in the under 18 Bathurst side he will take to the state titles.
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With no-one else keen for the job, Wright put his hand up to coach the Bathurst side which will be lining up in the division two competition of the Hockey NSW Indoor State Championships at Goulburn from Friday.
That side includes Lachie Howard and Fletcher Norris, both of whom have represented New South Wales at indoor in younger age divisions.
Norris, along with Ben Watson who is also in the under 18s, last week coached and managed the Bathurst under 13s side which finished second in the state in their division.
Wright will draw on that playing-coaching experience to help guide the 18s.
"They know more about the indoor than I do, they can basically coach themselves, but I'm not going to see them go without a coach," he said.
"They're good mates and I'm pretty much there to give them a few pointers and do a bit of motivating and such. They will all get game time as they've all committed."
With no Hockey NSW indoor titles contested the last two years due to COVID-19, it was 2019 when Bathurst most recently had an under 18 boys side in action.
They placed fifth in division two that year, but Wright thinks the current squad can improve on that even though their preparation has been impacted by COVID.
"We've got a good little side and they've all played a couple of years of indoor before," he said.
"We haven't done any training or anything like that because it's been too hard because of COVID, but it's a handy side there.
"I'm expecting them to go quite well in the division they're in without putting any pressure on them. It's more about them just getting together as they haven't had any rep for the last couple of years."
Though Wright has not got a lot of indoor coaching experience, he and Erin Cobcroft did previously coach a Bathurst side in a younger age group and they won that division.
He's also had some experience at playing, albeit a long time ago, and he enjoys the action of the fast-paced sport. The games the Bathurst 18s will play consist of four 10-minute periods.
"I actually really enjoy it. I never used to play comp, but when we played first grade for Pat's back in the day with Kel Cooke Senior, he used to love indoor so we used to do that for practice on Thursdays up at the old Mitchell College," Wright recalled.
"We used to enjoy it, it does help your skills. It is good fun and the kids like it and it is enjoyable to watch, so I'm looking forward to it."
Bathurst opens its campaign on Friday afternoon against Coffs Coast at 2.20pm then backs up at 5.40pm to tackle Illawarra South Coast.
Their final pool game is 10.40am Saturday against Northern Sydney and Beaches and if Bathurst is sitting in the top two after that, quarter-final hockey will follow that afternoon. The semi-finals and final will be played on Sunday.
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