Sport News

As we head towards the end of the school year and I approach completing my first year at the college I thought this an opportune time to reflect on the year and my plans for the future. Over the next three or four weeks I will share my vision for what sport will look like moving forward. I am happy to engage with anyone who has views positively or negatively on any of the plans I outline in the coming weeks. 

I want to start by thanking the community for making me feel so welcome. After such a long time (14 years) in one place at Churchie, I was concerned about making new connections and feeling accepted in a new home. I have felt nothing but warmth and support from day one so thank you to the staff, the parents and most importantly the boys for being so welcoming of me this year. It is much appreciated.

My approach this year has been to run things as they have always been run. I am cautious by nature and wanted to observe and discuss what we do in sport to see what works well, what I can learn from, and what areas we may be able to do things better. There have been occasions where I have been frustrated or disappointed but the vast majority of the time I have been impressed with the commitment, dedication and hard work of people to make sport work.

At the over-arching level, successful teams, and schools are just a very large team, are successful when there are shared values, a shared vision and complementary skills. It is my belief that the community by and large understands the values of Marist and Marist Sport but I would like to be in a position where any of us could recall the four of five value statements that define who we are. This will require better communication from us to ensure the whole community know what we stand for as a college in sport. The shared vision is something that I will explore further in the coming newsletters. Complementary skills are both within the staff and the community of supporters and athletes. From a staff perspective, I believe we do have a high-quality coaching and support staff team and I have been impressed with the work the team put in.

The improvements or additions to how we do things will not roll out overnight, this will be a steady implementation period over a 12-month period. I appreciate change is difficult and this will cause some angst for staff, boys and parents but there is no change to the ethos of Marist and for almost everyone, the changes will be minor or insignificant in affect.

I share this week a couple of topics, around providing meaningful competition and communication. These are more timely, than sequential in my thoughts.

Meaningful, quality competition

We wrote last week in the cricket section about upcoming changes to the way we organise cricket at AIC level. The main point of communication was around the reduction in the teams we enter to AIC competition in the younger years. The key is providing a meaningful and quality opportunity for boys.

This is not a completely new approach, volleyball has been doing this for a few years now, it works well for them and we are going to do it in basketball as well so boys don’t miss out on being able to play basketball. We believe it is the opposite of reducing opportunity, the changes mean we can cater for even more boys (unlimited), it suits the skill level of the boys, they will develop better than traditional cricket and they still get to play games for the College. Once we get this running I can see the other bigger AIC and GPS schools doing this in cricket as well and it will end up being a semi-AIC competition playing fixtures over more weeks.

It is a conscious decision by us to provide a better product for the boys, we are investing better resources than we can in the traditional format, by being Friday afternoon rather than Saturday we can have good quality coaches available, the teams get to use McMahon and Hayden ovals, with the canteen open, music going over the PA and it will be more engaging and faster paced for the boys. Ultimately we hope to see an increase in teams at Year 9 and above as a result of this. At the moment our team numbers go from seven teams in Year 7 to five in Year 8, four in Year 9 and three or four in Year 10. This is a 50% drop off in three years and we would like to address this and try something different to increase cricket participation right through the year levels.

The Friday afternoon concept will be a combination of skill development and gameplay in 8v8 format. At the end of the five weeks, they will play matches on a Friday night against other schools over two weeks. We mentioned last week about playing against one other school in the newsletter but we did not want to overpromise and underdeliver. We already have St Laurence's to play and we are approaching other schools to get another set of matches for the boys. If we get more schools we will play them all. This will be the opportunity to represent the College. The challenge of finding matches is getting harder and harder, some of the bigger AIC schools are limiting team numbers as well as the smaller schools not having the depth. 

In summary, we do not want to reduce opportunity, we want to increase engagement at a more appropriate level where boys can feel like they are having more success and hopefully develop a deeper love of the game and go on to play in later years.

I will discuss the overall AIC competition model, the opportunities it presents and our solutions to provide meaningful, engaging, quality sporting opportunities for the boys in an upcoming newsletter.

Communication and Consistency

One of the areas I have identified to make some changes is in our communication and our consistency across activities. You may have noticed that both cricket and football have released selection policies for their 2023 AIC seasons on the College App. If you have looked at both you will note they are consistent in the language, processes and expectations, with only minor calendar and sport-specific tweaks. This is deliberate and will be made available before trials start for the upcoming season for all sports. I will discuss the content of the criteria in an upcoming newsletter, the purpose here is to highlight consistency and clear communication across sports.

Each sport or activity will also have a sport-specific handbook. I believe it is important that the community understands the procedures and expectations for an activity so you can make an informed decision on that activity and are confident that you know what you need to know. These will again be consistent in their format with only minor sport-specific tweaks where necessary so if you play, for example, cricket, rugby and tennis the way we do provide information should be consistent.

These are just two examples of how we are going to become better and communicating and more consistent in how we share information, the point here is that I have identified communication and being consistent as an area we can improve.

I look forward to sharing more with you over the coming weeks.

Term 3 Sports Dinner

Last Friday evening we came together as a community to celebrate achievements of our term 3 first teams in basketball, rugby league, tennis and track and field at the Queensland Cricketers Club. The Gabba, with the field and stands behind us provided a wonderful setting for this event.

We were joined by NBA and current Brisbane Bullets and Boomers player Mr Aron Baynes. Aron provided insights into his playing career with key messages of respect, hard work, discipline and integrity shining through in his presentation to the group. I know the boys found him to be engaging, entertaining and informative, with many key messages to take away as young athletes and men.

Sport Award Winners

Basketball

Most Improved - Ethen Tsiamalili

Spirit of Ashgrove - Dylan Cooper

Rugby League 

Best Forward - Rory Baker

Best Back - Connor Lyons

Tennis

Most Valuable - Liam Webb

Most Improved - Frank Baker

Track and Field

Spirit of Ashgrove - Thomas Dempsey

Best AIC Performance - Thomas Prole

Major Awards

Basketball

Most Valuable - Brent Humphreys

Rugby League

Most Valuable - Jack Billing 

Tennis

Player of the Year - Louis Morris

Track and Field

 Overall Contribution - Thomas Prole

Thank you to all the staff, coaches, coordinators, parents and boys who made the night such a memorable one. Thank you to Mr Mitch Reid for his hard work in putting this special occasion together.  

Student Achievements

Jasper Barry (Rugby)

Congratulations to Jasper Barry on his recent selection in the Queensland Under 16 rugby team. This is a tremendous achievement and we as a college wish Jasper well in this competition.

Adrian Garbellini (Orienteering)

Adrian competed at the Australian Orienteering Championships during the September holidays with some great results:

• Orienteering Grand Prix – 12th in M14A
• Schools Sprint – 31st in Jnr Boys
• Schools Long – 21st in Jnr Boys
• Australian Sprint – 14th in M14A
• Australian Middle Distance – 25th in M14A
• Australian Long Distance – 7th in M14A
• Australian Relay - 4th in M14A
• Victorian Middle Distance - 11th in M14A