In their first year at the KEEPUP Kanga Cup, 2023 is set to be a big year for Orange Football as they test themselves against competitors from all over Australia and the world.
Having started training for this event late last year, the boys l competed at a local competition three weeks ago to give them a taste of what this week-long tournament will be like.
“We’ve been training once a week basically since last September,” said U12’s mixed coach Pete Vanstone. “We just competed in a local representative side for Western Districts, and we got runners up in that, so we thought we’d come down here and do this.”
With that experience under their belt, they will look to better their second-place finish as they take on a wide variety of opponents.
“The experience is probably one thing, and they all want to have fun, but also its competitive and they want to win. They’re all pretty competitive boys and they love to win,” Vanstone said.
“It’s made them hungrier, to turn up and give this a good go.”
Some players in the U12 mixed team play representative football, so the KEEPUP Kanga Cup will be a good test for those to measure their footballing capabilities.
“They got runners up in their representative season and unlucky not to win that,” Vanstone revealed. There’s about six or so of these kids that also play for Western Districts, and they are competing against Sydney sides every week so a lot of good pressure which is good.”
Vanstone also admits there’s no better time to host this tournament than in the school holiday period so that the kids keep active.
“We’ve come down here for a week, otherwise they’re just sitting at home on their tablets,” said Vanstone.
Only a three-hour drive from Canberra, Orange players play in the Western NSW competition, so travelling is something they have gotten used to, with Bathurst and Dubbo their neighbouring towns that compete in their competition.
The competitive and skilful group co-coached by Vanstone and Justin Splithof will look to go a long way in the tournament whilst having fun along the way.
Words: Harrison Frater