The Naitanui Academy made the most of the two-week school break with a mix of trainings, match play and development opportunities provided to participants across the state.
With total participant numbers soaring past 2,400 midway through the year, Eagles staff endeavoured to engage with as many academy players as possible to continue the important momentum built so far this year.
Two matches highlighted the school holidays, the first being a mix of Naitanui Academy 15–16-year-olds against the State Schoolboys squad of a similar age.
Naitanui Academy Manager Chris Brown said the match was an important test for the squad see how they fair against a highly talented side.
“Our guys showed up with some real fight and spirit; it was a highly skilled, hot contest game and even across the first three quarters before we ran out of a bit of steam in the end,” he said.
“The opportunity for our guys to go up against a strong state squad was fantastic, and is important to further the development our young squad and set some clear aspirations to reach for in the back-half of the year.”
The second and most recent match of the two was a tight contest between the Naitanui Academy squad of 16–17-year-olds against the Eagles’ Town of Victoria Park neighbours, the Perth Demons.
“We had to hang tough in the first quarter as the Perth team were really well-drilled and got on top of us early on, but our guys played with lots of flare and were able to run the Demons around the ground with our speed and intensity on the attacking end particularly in the second half leading to a great result,” Brown said.
“The Perth Futures squad featured a lot of our Naitanui Academy boys, as well as the two captains being Naitanui boys which was a nice addition to the match.
“Both games are there to help our players develop, give our academy staff another look at some of these boys in match-play and most importantly is a great opportunity for our WAFL partners, not just Perth but also the other talent managers who came down, to assess some of our players and see if they’re ready for Colts football next year.
“It was a big school holiday period as we had these matches of course, but also a few other sessions with our metro and regional 15’s squad coming in. We held a mini-camp for our Futures High Performance group and had a match-sim session with huge numbers for our metro Rookies, Juniors and Seniors squads.”
“It’s been a great year so far. Numbers are through the roof and we continue to grow in both metro and regional areas with lots of new faces coming in and to top it off our older players are developing really well, so we’re excited for what the rest of the year brings.”
The Naitanui Academy is back up-and-running with it’s normal training schedule in preparation for a huge end to 2024 with upcoming matches, the metro vs. regional curtain raiser at Optus Stadium and the Naitanui Cup later in the year.
