Celebrating all things sport in Cowra

Celebrating local sport and the people who make it happen was the focus of the Cowra Sports and Recreation Committee’s networking event on Saturday. The social gathering at Club Cowra brought together players, officials, volunteers and administrations from across Cowra, to talk all things sport and recreation. A special feature of the afternoon was a panel of young local sports achievers. Nicole Lowe-Tarbert is a representative in multiple combat sports; Mackenzie Crook in representative soccer; Ky Garratt in representative athletics, recently making headlines for his hammer throw win; and Alex McFarland representative squash. Nyrie Akin, Department of Defence sports and exercise physiotherapist, spoke about injury prevention as something that affects every athlete. “What’s really important for me is we get an understanding of the things we can do to increase the longevity of our sports,” she said. “You’re all here for a reason, we all love participating and we all love being part of sport so we want to make sure we have a good career and participate as long as we can.” David Foster, president of Woodbridge Cup referees, spoke about the introduction of the green sock policy, which sees any referee under 18 wearing bright green socks. Foster spoke about how difficult it can be to recruit and retain game officials, who are essential to sport. Woodbridge Cup rugby league clubs were quick to support identifying junior referees with the highly visible socks, and the introduction of a zero tolerance policy toward any abuse of them.