Success Begins with a Desire & a Dream.

So this past week I witnessed something I haven’t seen in 10yrs, The Under 19’s Australian Softball Team (Jnr Steelers) are now again the WBSC World Champions. I played a very small part in their championship, I attended a camp that was organized for the team in April 2018 @ the AIS in Canberra. I was apart of a greater Aussie Steelers coaching panel headed by Laing Harrow. Now only having known a couple of the guys in the team(WA guys) it was good to see the talent that was on display.
What I was particularly impressed with was how much of a close unit they were, even at that early stage of the build-up. Now I was involved with the catching and pitching side of things at the camp, I just talked mainly with the catchers about their relationship with umpires and how they can get more strikes for the pitchers and make the strike zone a little wider. By the looks of things, it worked because they were getting some very good calls and more than likely why Layton Reid was dominating, that’s not to say Layton isn’t a good pitcher he brings it that’s for sure but having that extra 1-2 inches on either side of the plate means a lot. So congrats to the Jnr Steelers and there great staff for being World Champions.

Now to local Ball again We played Vikings this past weekend, we won 7-0 on a slightly cooler day up at there ground, I lead off for our team and in my 1st 2 at bats popped the ball up into the air. It wasn’t a case of chasing back pitches the pitches were there, it was a case of swinging under them and not connecting correctly. But my last at bat was a good one where I hit a 2 run Homerun to stretch our lead to 7.
Steve pitched very well in his last game with us before returning to NZ with his lovely wife Rach and there wee fulla Connor. Gonna miss ya bro but like I said “this isn’t goodbye its just see ya later.” We will see each other again soon.

Now onto last night (Wed 18th July 2018) I found out from one of my good mates that I was just appointed the head coach of the South Australian Men’s Softball Team. Now to say I’m honoured & perplexed at the same time would be a fair judgement, For the first time in my National Career I won’t be donning the Black & Gold it’ll be Navy Blue & Red. Now as much as this is a different thing its also a good thing, it gives me a chance to try my hand at coaching at a higher level than I have done previously before. It will be challenging as the bulk of my team will be in a different state but that’s where good communication with my other coaches comes in as a paramount thing.

In this day and age, technology is a very handy tool to use, I can send video of how I want the guys to practise their techniques on certain aspects of our game. We can have fortnightly team meetings over the web and discuss what’s working and not working and tailor our trainings to that. On a whole I really look forward to getting into it and seeing what we can achieve as a group.

Cheers
Azza