COACH Jim Ford will temporarily swap his Southern Branch colours for those of New South Wales Country next week.
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Ford will leave on September 30 with his NSW Country under 14s boys side, as they head to Coffs Harbour to play in the FFA National Youth Championships for Boys.
The week long tournament will be the first time the Nowra-based coach will have the honour of coaching his state at a national carnival.
“I was asked to apply for this coaching position following my work with Southern Branch and thankfully they gave me the job,” Ford said.
“It’s a real honour and something that I’m not going to take lightly.”
The team of 16, which includes three Shoalhaven players, will play five games over five days while in Coffs Harbour.
“When we started, we had about 35 players but after numerous camps, we cut it down to a 16-man squad,” Ford said.
“Included in the squad are local lads Jack Scotcher, Lachlan Bruce and skipper Daniel Rogan. We have 13 solid players and another three guys that can do a job for us
“We have been placed in the second group and have games against Victoria Country, Tasmania, NSW Metro White, Northern NSW Country and Queensland Country.
“Obviously you need a little bit of luck in these tournaments, but if we can stay injury free, I think we are good chance of winning the whole tournament.
“With a lot of these boys having already played together in the under 13s team last year and a few boys having combinations from their regions, such as Western and Riverinia, the cohesion is already pretty good and will improve with our final training camp this weekend.”
Ford is cherishing the chance at coaching the state’s top talents against the nation’s top players.
“The biggest difference between my Southern Branch women and this boys side is the training aspect,” he said.
“This season, we didn’t have the whole first grade team together once and that made it hard to fix problems from the weekends’ matches.
“But these boys all attend each session with eagerness to learn, which makes it a lot easier to get done a training what we need to do.
“The boys energy has made the transition from the two easy and I’m not heading into the tournament daunted or nervous.
“The quality of the talent that’s going to be on show in Coffs Harbour isn’t going to be anything I haven’t seen before.
“All the boys and coaching staff are buzzing now, as we have put in all the hard work and I’m excited to see them all get the results they deserve on the field.”
The team kick-off their tournament against Queensland Country on Monday.