Remote and Indigenous Hockey Program (RIHP) has sent away its first co-ed team to a boys competition; the under-13 boys state championship in Gladstone.
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Development Officer for the RIHP, Hope Philip, said she was very proud of the kids.
“This was our first kick-off as such for the year.
“This team came about because Mount Isa decided they weren’t going to send a team away but we had kids that wanted to go away still, so the four centres of the RIHP; Mount Isa, Bundaberg, Toowoomba and Brisbane got together to form a remote and indigenous team,” Philip said.
The co-ed team ended up being a Hockey Queensland squad, requiring approval from Hockey Queensland as part of the RIHP program.
The body also accepted an under-15 girls team from Gladstone to the boys competition, to encourage more children into the sport, said Philip.
"They’re looking at different avenues and looking at participation in sport and other ideas they can do to increase numbers in hockey as a whole,” Philip said.
“There’s not many sports that allow co-ed. When we went away everyone was very sceptical; ‘Oh you’ve got girls in your team, they won’t perform as well as the boys’ – well they smashed it.
“They stood up, they played equal to the boys, so to me there’s no difference. You wouldn’t have even known it was a co-ed team. They held their own, they won one of their games, and they ended up coming ninth in our division, out of 12.”
Half the team were Indigenous, which is also a focus for the RIHP.
“That’s always a great thing to see as well, for participation and inclusion. But it’s whoever wants to participate, whether they’re Indigenous or not,” Philip said.
The other three development offices around Queensland also had players who wanted to go away, but did not have enough players to make up a team.
The RIHP team consisted of seven players from Mount Isa (five boys, two girls) three players from Toowoomba (one boy, two girls) three players from Brisbane (two boys, one girl), and one girl from Gladstone.
“If they didn’t have this opportunity to go, they would have missed out,” Philip said.
“As a result, kids were identified as potential state players. There are remote centres that go away and think, ‘we’re not going to get looked at for any state selection’ – it’s actually so untrue it’s not funny.”
Philip’s own son Brock was awarded Rising Star out of 22 teams from across Queensland.
“It just shows no matter where you play, what colour you are, if you want to do that they’ll give you that opportunity,” Philip said.
As part of Philip's role as Development Co-ordinator for RIHP, she will be contacting schools to glean interest in the program.
“Terms 3 and 4 is our goal, to get into the local schools to do a short 3-4 week program leading up to the inter-school sports day in Term 4.
As part of her job Philip will be assisting the schools with resources for the competition.