WA Cricket Academy and Youth Academy Players Shine In Camp

Players were treated to a range of activities on the camp, from listening to guest speakers to helping a local charity organisation.

Guest speakers included former West Coast Eagle Nic Naitanui and newly appointed WA Development Coach Simon Mackin. The camp also saw a continuation of the WA Cricket Pathway Player Development Program, led by consultant Fiona Ryan which provides high-performance mindset support to develop the person behind the player and optimise growth, performance and enjoyment of the game.

It also provides a golden opportunity for the members of the Academy and Youth Academy to spend crucial time together prior the upcoming National Championship campaigns.

WA Cricket Pathways Coach – Male Programs Brian Shields said the camp provided the next generation of players the chance to develop personal skills on and off the field.

“It’s a good opportunity for them to get to know players that, although there is a bit of an age gap at the moment, the hope is they’ll get to play together for Western Australia as adults,” he said.

“They get exposed to some player development with our player development managers here.

“We get some special guests in, like Nic Naitanui this year, we had Jack Della Maddalena here and Perth Scorchers players like Cam Bancroft and Sam Whiteman.

“We also give an opportunity to the boys to give back and try to expose them to situations where life is bigger than cricket.”

This year’s community engagement camp activity saw members of the Academy and Youth Academy team up with “Dadbury”, a group of volunteers that live in Padbury and neighbouring suburbs.

Shields said camp participants were set a sizeable task on this occasion.

“We had 20 able hands able to help a single mother who’s facing some challenging circumstances,” he said.

“We wanted to build a cubby house for her daughters to play in.

“The boys had to paint it and rebuild it under the guidance of carpenters and those there to help.

“It was really good to see the boys get involved.

“They were learning to drill, hammer, sand and everything it takes to build the cubby house.

“It ended up being five hours on the tools for the boys.

“Mike Maxted, who runs Dadbury, told the boys what they did will have a long-lasting impact far beyond what they probably thought.”

Shields said activities like this gave the group a chance to lean into the WA men’s team values ‘trust, humility and committed’.

“Those sorts of engagements give us intel on how our boys operate,” he said.

“They really bought into this activity straight away.

“We value the people that come into our programs and out state teams.

“It’s important to be great people and understand where you come from.

“We always want our boys to band together as a collective and I feel like we have a pretty special group of players in this academy.”