Sport

Pam Dillon. Students from a remote Barkly school have been developing their swimming and water safety skills during a fun-filled visit to Tennant Creek. Seventeen students from Canteen Creek School hit the pool for several days of aquatic instruction under the watchful eyes of Swimming NT Pathways Manager Thomas Noblett and Barkly Sports Education Coordinator Pam Dillon.

Rebecca Rowlings. The Narrandera Eagles senior women’s side broke their SNSW drought with a tense four-point win over the Brookdale Bluebells at Lockhart last Friday. After completing their inaugural season in 2020 without a win, the Eagles had endured six straight losses in 2021.

Leigh Robertson. Despite the onslaught of rain and resulting flooded fairways over the past week, our course is in great condition. Once again, our greens staff have worked hard to help the course recover so competitions and social play can go ahead.

A Tasmanian athletics icon is helping to grow a love of sport among Barkly school students. Jocelyn (Millar) Cubit, an Upper Primary Teacher at Epenarra School, south-east of Tennant Creek, boasts an impressive athletics resume, having represented Australia at three successive Commonwealth Games ... Still the holder of several Tasmanian athletics records, Jo is now devoted to inspiring remote school students.

The annual Murrabit Cod Challenge was held over the weekend of March 19-21, an event run each year by the Murrabit Football and Netball Club to raise funds for their club. The event has been running since 2009 and is run 100% by local volunteers. Entries for the competition were capped at 300 adult tickets and sold out in just over a week, proving to be a very popular event. There were also 39 enthusiastic junior competitors entered, who were all lucky enough to take home an assortment of prizes donated by Hookem Fishing.

Kendall Jennings. Jaydyn Coggins is a former student from Barham Primary School. The school had cups and that is where Jaydyn first tried sport stacking. At this moment the world changed for Jaydyn, his family moved to Adelaide after he completed year one. Then, at nine years old, Jaydyn rediscovered the sport on YouTube, but it would also be the start of an obsession with sport stacking. With the support of his family, at 15, Jaydyn quickly became the fastest cup stacker in Australia, with a dream to travel overseas to the World Sport Stacking Championships. As a young man with Autism, Jaydyn has had his hurdles to overcome throughout the years and so, when he found a sport that he not only loved, but excelled in, there was no turning back.

A recent 10 day stretch on the Southern Yorke Peninsula has been compared to the Mad March of Adelaide, with the amount of bowls being played. Bowls competitions were played across the region on almost every day from Thursday, March 4, to Monday, March 15.

The Downs & District Ladies Bowling Association will be celebrating their 70th year this year. The district recently bestowed the honour of life membership to five members.

Kirstin Nicholson. Organisers of Sunday’s AWMA Water Control Solutions 28th Cohuna Bridge to Bridge are thrilled with the day. Cooler weather presented ideal conditions for entrants who competed in seven running and cycling events from as early as 8am ... Entrants travelled from across Victoria and New South Wales to participate, with many staying overnight and injecting cash into local businesses. With events catering for all ages and abilities, participants ranged from serious runners and cyclists to those out for a leisurely Sunday walk, with many ex-locals returning for the event.

The Wakool Show was back with a fantastic flurry of fun, food, music and entertainment. This year’s show was rolled into one action packed evening and the community support was fantastic with families coming from Wakool, Moulamein, Koondrook-Barham and Deniliquin.

Nicholas Rupolo. Narrandera-born GWS Giant Matt Flynn is set for an AFL debut this week after recovering from a devastating ACL injury last year. The Giants host St Kilda on Sunday with Flynn to take to the paddock in what is a dream come true after 12 years in the making.

Seven champions have been crowned after an exciting opening event of the 2021 SunSmart WA Bodyboard Titles presented by Good Earth. Mandurah provided summer-like conditions over the weekend with small, clean and sun-drenched waves on offer for the diverse mix of talent who converged from right across WA to compete.

Geoff Helisma. Yamba Surf Life Saving Club member Kalani Ives says her “main goal is to paddle across the Molokai Channel and win that” ... Kalani has already racked up a numerous outstanding results competing in the Nippers – and at the 2021 NSW Surf Life Saving Championships, held at Swansea on March 6 and 7, she won the U17 Iron Woman, came third in the U17 Female Board Race and fourth in the U17 Female Single Ski.

More than 800 of the state’s fittest and fastest Masters competitors braved both scorching sun and squalls of rain to show they’ve still got what it takes after a big two days at the NSW Masters Surf Life Saving Championships, proudly supported by Your local club, at Swansea Belmont.

A special tribute to merchant marine has been gaining plenty of attention in its off-beat location. You can find it at the 7th tee at Carpentaria Golf Club in Weipa. Erected by team members from Smit Lamnalco, the anchor in the garden bed is a tribute “to honour the Australian Merchant Navy who sailed in all wars, past, present and future”.

There will be no Laura rodeo and races this year after both committees decided to pull the pin for a second straight year. Last year’s events were made impossible by the closure of Cape York to outsiders and this year’s event was abandoned as a result of strict COVID-19 rules.

The surf gods delivered with Main Break showing it can handle a wide variety of conditions, with 2-3 feet waves on Saturday building to 6-10 feet yesterday. The conditions brought out the best from WA's new generation of surfing superstars who relished the opportunity to surf in arguably some of the biggest surf ever seen at a junior surfing event in the country.

Kirstin Nicholson interviews Shaniah Dye: "I thought, what better thing to do than start my own business where I can work with the animals that I love the most and be able to talk to people who have similar hobbies, instead of going out to a workplace where I didn’t feel I could relate to people at that time. That was pretty much how Blue Poppy Equines started, it was my new opening into the world. "

What a great weekend for golf in our area. The 48th Northern Victorian Triple Golfanza was played over the Labour Day weekend, at Cohuna on Saturday, Barham on Sunday and Kerang on Monday. Attracting capacity fields each day, this event was patronised with representatives from 37 different clubs, with large contingents from Goonawarra, Carrington Park, Mooroopna, Belvoir Park, Cardinia-Beacon Hills and Neangar Park Golf Clubs.

Froth levels are building ahead of the much anticipated opening event of the 2021 Woolworths WA Junior Surfing Titles presented by SunSmart, as close to 100 of Western Australia’s best junior surfers prepare for an action-packed weekend in the wave-rich Margaret River region.

The second weekend of the State Championships will see the elite surf and beach athletes line up against both the unexpected heroes and future stars with over 1,100 athletes representing 78 clubs from all 10 branches.

In one of Victoria's largest horse events, and with COVID-19 restrictions in place, Olivia Griffiths and Amber King-Gee competed in the Pony Club Victoria State Show Jumping Championships at Benalla Equestrian Centre on Sunday, February 28.