Good Neighbour and Heat development
Posted by devo on November 21, 2008
The Good Neighbour tournament is one of the longest-running volleyball competitions in Australia; it is the 43rd consecutive year it has been run in Canberra.
This weekened 100 club teams from across all states and territories apart from Western Australia, plus elite men’s and women’s teams from New Zealand, will compete over five men’s divisions, four women’s divisions and two recreational mixed divisions. The tournament will be played at three venues the AIS, National Netball Centre and ANU.
A loss will still be as good as a win for the Canberra Heat men’s team in the Good Neighbour Volleyball Tournament this weekend, according to coach Les Young.
The Heat is currently on the bottom of the Australian Volleyball League ladder with no wins from nine games, and has only won four of 31 sets. But Young is driving a development program for the next 18 months that is focused on creating a strong senior program in the years to come.
”This has been a development year so we haven’t really been focusing on results,” Young said. ”We have plenty of young guys in the team and we have a 17-year-old, Alex Turner, in the starting seven and a 15-year-old, Jordan Power, in our travelling squad. ”They have improved over the season so far and it’s just a matter of time before the results come.”
The Heat will play in the honours division and tackle the visiting New Zealand team in the first game of the men’s competition tonight at the AIS from 8pm. The Canberra Heat women will take on Auckland to kick off the tournament at 6.30pm. more@CanberraTimes
If you live locally – make sure that you get along and check out the action.
edbinnie said
Beat me to it Devo!
Interesting to see that both Pirates and Uni Blues are there, duking it out before the deciding AVL round next weekend, while both UTS Sydney Uni and the AIS have chosen to skip the tournament (I’m guessing to rest players/focus on the following round?)
Frank said
Uni blues is largely made up of the players in the AVL squad that haven’t played in any of the AVL rounds as well as players from outside the squad. Six players from their regular playing squad are not playing in candberra.