Crestwood High School will send six teams to Wednesday’s Inner West Sydney Senior Schools tournament.
More than 400 high school kids will compete in the regional tournament, that continues to get bigger every year.
“I think it just reflects the interest in Oztag around the Hills area, it’s great to see so many enthusiastic students that want to get involved in the sport,” Crestwood High School coach Hugo Lam told Oztag Australia.
Boys and Girls teams from throughout the region will compete in six divisions that are all expected to be tightly contested.
“Probably 50-60% of our guys play rep Oztag. We’ve got some Nepean players and some Tigers players in the younger years. Then we’ve got some kids playing Oztag for the first time,” Lam explained.
“We’ve got a bit of a crossover between our Oztag players and our touch players but we’re finding more and more that our students prefer Oztag.
“It’s a simpler game to learn to begin with and it’s a lot more definitive. When you get tagged, you’re tagged, whereas in touch it’s a lot greyer.
“They also pick up a lot of different skills that they can use in other sports like league and union, it’s a lot more relatable.”
While Lam said he was confident that his side’s would be competitive on Wednesday, he said the competition would be tough.
“Model Farms and Castle Hill both have a really strong Oztag culture. Model Farms are sending nine teams tomorrow, they’re only five minutes away from us, then Castle Hill are 10 minutes away so there’s certainly plenty of interest in the Hills district.
“We’re pushing for it to become a CHS sport. I don’t know if it’s quite there yet but there are certainly some things in the works to try and make Oztag an official sport in the NSW School Sport Association.”
The top two teams in each division will progress to the Champion of Champions tournament later this year and compete against the state’s best school Oztag sides for the NSW State Championships.
“We should get some good results. It’ll most likely be wet so the guys will need to adapt to that because that makes things a little less predictable.”
“The students were all really excited when they heard about the Champion of Champions tournament, it’s a big incentive for them.”