By Treveen Page

Order of Australia Medalist for her contribution to netball and Commonwealth Games gold medalist Vicki Wilson visited Port Douglas last weekend to hold her "Reach for the Stars" clinic for Douglas Netballers, thanks to the Queensland Governments community benefit fund. 

Vicki held training sessions on Friday night for the Junior representative teams, Junior Marlins and Senior teams, on Saturday she covered all the 12 - 16/Under age groups with dedicated training sessions aimed at the players skill levels. 

All players had a great time training under Vicki who introduced many new and innovative drills teaching the girls court work, space awareness and ball handling techniques all with positive and encouraging instruction.  

Douglas Junior netball coaches attended the sessions to learn the drills to take back to their respective teams.  Thanks to all players and coaches for attending the clinics.

Vicki then travelled back to Cairns to attend the Marlin Coast Sports Forum along with elite coach and former head coach of the Diamonds Australian Netball team Jill McIntosh. 

The sports forum was designed to provide a development pathway for Junior Marlin & Academy  players, Coaches and Umpires. 

Douglas Satellite coach Sharon Beechey along with Cassandra Hill and Tracey Pashen attended the coaching training sessions and Coral Deen and Lynne Kinraide attended the umpiring sessions, the Douglas Junior Marlins attending were Eleisha Mealing, Marley Cairns, Jess Eagle-Rowe, Lauren Ryan and Rae Page. 

Both coaches and umpires learned many new drills and techniques that they will be able to take back to the Douglas region to impart on our trainee coaches and umpires. 

Vicki and Jill are fantastic teachers of the sport with a wealth of netball knowledge between them they split the Junior Marlins and coaches into two groups each taking a group then half way through they swapped over to give the players and coaches the opportunity to train under both mentors. 

The Coaches were walked through drills and then went with their own group of players to run the drill themselves.  At the end of the session all Junior Marlins were presented with their home training program which they need to do weekly and report back to their coaches, they were also presented with sports bags, socks and water bottles. 

The afternoon saw the Academy players training with their respective coaches, under Vicki and Jill's guidance, Douglas Netball's Marlin Coast Academy player Zara Ryan trained with Sharon Beechey as Satellite coach.  

Overall a very busy weekend of netball but a fantastic opportunity for all involved, many thanks to Vicki Wilson and Jill McIntosh for their fantastic contribution to our regions netball.

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