NZ Junior Scholarship Recipients
4
On the 28 of June I flew to Sydney then to Albruy where I was met by Jimmy Grills who introduced himself and drove me to his parent’s farm where I met Sara and Charlie. By the time we arrived it was dark so we didn't do much but talk and I met Lucy their daughter and Jack Cumming who had already arrived the previous day. This is where I stayed for the entire time of my scholarship. I learned that the Grills’ farm was about 4,000 acres and had around 300 horses on it. The next day I rode the horse that I would ride at the carnivals, one of Jimmy's horse "Laney" she was an awesome horse.
The first weekend we played at Harden and Jackson and I played for Albruy in B grade and made it through to the finals but lost. It was a real eye opener in how different the Aussies played; they played with a greater level of horsemanship and took the other horses and players on before passing the ball
as well as taking the line on themselves. Also the linking up in the area was different to what I had been taught before.
The next week was the junior Quadrangular where we played against South West Slopes and Southern Highlands the two Aussie zone teams and also the USA Juniors. The rest of the New Zealand Junior team arrived on the Thursday and we all went to the training camp with the rest of the Australian and American Intermediate and Junior players, where we were coached by Australian coaches. There were about 100 of us and it was really cool.
The first game we played that weekend was against South West Slopes, and we got beaten, quite badly, 9 points to 3 (I think we were getting used to our horses and playing with each other). The next game was against the American Junior team and we thrashed them 21 to 9. Russell was a really good coach, he talked to us individually and motivated us after we had lost the first game and told us what to do for the next game.
On the Sunday morning we played Southern Highlands and we beat them quite well and that put us in the final that afternoon. The game was really close and we were down by 4 goals before we went out for the last chukka. We came on and had to work really hard and with about 2 seconds left I shot the winning goal. It was an awesome weekend and it was even more awesome because we won the whole thing and beat the Australian Junior team. We made lots of friends and made friends with the Americans too.
We did lots of riding and breaking in horses which included riding the young horses in the round pen. We also learned fencing and went pig hunting and did other farm stuff which was fun.
We played two other carnivals winning the last one at Jugong. This carnival I played 1, Luke Reiche played 2 and Jackson Cumming played 3, in the first chukka, (an all New Zealand Chukka), the second chukka was made up of Australians, the number two was Will Western (he played for Australia in the world cup team). We played in the C open grade and called ourselves "The Worriers". The last carnival was the South West Slopes.
Looking back it was an awesome trip and I learnt a lot to bring back to NZ and can't wait to use some of the tricks and skills I learnt over there.
I would like to thank the Grills family for having me and putting up with me for the month and also hooking me up with a good horse to ride. And of course the New Zealand Polocrosse Board for giving me this opportunity of a life time to better my Polocrosse.
Yours sincerely
Andrew Wolfenden
Report from Andrew Wolfenden