Cobar soccer players spend a week in Sydney with FWAS

Benjamin Anderson, Sam Piper and Chad Buckman spent the last week of the school holidays with the FWAS Soccer squad in Sydney. They are pictured with soccer player David Plowright and Football NSW coach Anthony Herrera, who they trained with.
Benjamin Anderson, Sam Piper and Chad Buckman spent the last week of the school
holidays with the FWAS Soccer squad in Sydney. They are pictured with soccer player David Plowright and Football NSW coach Anthony Herrera, who they trained with.

Benjamin Anderson, Sam Piper and Chad Buckman spent the last week of the school holidays in Sydney at a Far West Academy of Sport (FWAS) soccer development team camp.

Team manager Lesley Hillam said the FWAS soccer team played against St Mary’s at Football NSW, on the new synthetic field.

“The score was 3-all until the last couple of minutes, when they were defending their goal and accidently scored an own goal, loosing 4-3.

“St Mary’s were great to play and the kids did well to keep them out in the humid weather.” she said.

Ms Hillam said the team had trained at the Football NSW complex that morning for two hours before the game, so they had a full day of soccer on Tuesday.

She said the next day they went to Macquarie University where ex Socceroo’s player Paul Reid coached them for five and a half hours before having a game of coaches versus players.

“This was a great day for them and the coaches, but was very tiring,” Ms Hillam said.

On Thursday morning they headed back to Football NSW for another coaching session where FWAS’s goalkeeper got some one-on-one training from David Plowright.

“Plowright plays soccer with one of the Sydney Clubs and also plays Futsal in New Zealand,” Ms Hillam said.

The rest of the FWAS team trained with Anthony Herrera from Football NSW.

“In the afternoon we returned to the synthetic field for another match against St Mary’s,” Ms Hillam said.

In this game St Mary’s was stronger than the Tuesday game after a reshuffle of players.

“The kids played a great game but went down 5–3.

“The heat was more extreme and St Mary’s wanted to play at 3pm which meant it was quite hot in the sun.

“The FWAS players had a great time and it was a good experience.” Ms Hillam said.