Seven days after tackling the notorious Wanda Sandhills, our best juniors will be tackling each other at St Gregory’s College Campbelltown.
More than 300 of Wests Tigers up-and-coming pathways players will be involved in Saturday’s all-important trial games, to select the club’s junior representative teams for the 2024 season.
An early start at St Greg’s will see all ten of Wests Tigers junior rep teams in action, both male and female.
The morning will involve intra-club trials for our male teams with Wests taking on Balmain in the Harold Matthews (U17s) and SG Ball (U19s) age groups, and Wests Macarthur playing Balmain in the Andrew Johns Cup (U16s) and Laurie Daley Cup (U18s) trials.
Our female teams will take on junior rep squads from Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs.
Head of pathways & junior recruitment, Shannon Gallant says a lot goes into making this type of event run smoothly.
“There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle purely because of the scale of our junior pathways,” said Gallant.
We have more junior rep teams than any other club, and we’re finding that more and more juniors are wanting to be in our system.
Shannon Gallant
“We have some great people looking after our junior rep teams, including Bronson Harrison and Christian Urso, and I’m sure everything will go smoothly.”
Gallant says last weekend’s all-in fitness session at Wanda was a good lead-in to Saturday’s matches.
“They knew they’d had a training session that’s for sure,” Gallant said.
“Like we did last Saturday, we’ll kick things off nice and early to avoid the hottest part of the day.
“St Greg’s have been great in helping us put this together and I want to thank them for their continued support.”
Jess Bygate, Wests Tigers Women’s Football Manager, is delighted with the level of interest around female pathways.
“There has certainly been a noticeable uplift in interest following on from our inaugural season in the NRLW,” said Bygate.
We have a lot of new girls coming into the system, who all want to follow a similar path to the top.
Jess Bygate
“It’s brilliant that we can now offer such a rewarding incentive to these young female players.”
Members and fans wanting to catch a glimpse of the club’s budding junior rep players are free to come along and ‘show your stripes’.
Andrew Johns Cup (U16s)
Macarthur Wests Tigers vs Balmain U16s
Kick-off 8:30am
Harold Matthews Cup (U17s)
Wests Magpies vs Balmain Tigers
Kick-off 8:30am
Laurie Daley Cup (U18s)
Macarthur Wests Tigers vs Balmain Tigers (U18s)
Kick-off 9:45am
SG Ball Cup (U19s)
Wests Magpies vs Balmain Tigers
Kick-off 11:00am
Lisa Fiaola Cup (U17s)
Wests Tigers vs Canterbury Bulldogs
Kick-off 9:45am
Tarsha Gale Cup (U19s)
Wests Tigers vs Canterbury Bulldogs
Kick-off 11:00am
