The host association has two sides primed for battle, with the As to compete  for the Division 1 silverware and the Bs hoping to claim the Division 3 honours.

Brad Hall has the As for what will be his return to the junior coaching ranks.

“I haven’t coached juniors at the state level for a long time – about 10 years,” he said.

He is excited to be back, and in charge of what he described as a pretty balanced unit.

“It’s a pretty good team,” Hall said. “We’ve got some strong players and some other players who are not too far behind them in terms of ability.”

“They’ll be led by Toby (Whitten).”

He and Calvin Farmilo were both part of the 18s side that finished runners-up earlier in the month.

“Our strength is our strikers – Lachie (Butler), Nick (O’Connor) and Luke Maher,” he said.

“We’re very strong up there along with Toby and Calvin in the midfield.”

One of the biggest challenges will be physically.

“Only about four are U15s. The rest are U14s,” he said.

“The challenge will be that extra age.”

Another will be how quickly they can bond and establish as a team.

Hall would have liked more games and said it had been a real challenge getting the group together with competing priorities and commitments.

When The Leader went out to photograph them last week almost half of the side was away playing for McCarthy at the Combined Catholic Colleges carnival.

“It’s not going to be a huge challenge but it will be a challenge for us to get into that first game,” he said.

That will be Far North Coast at 9am tomorrow morning.

Having not been around the junior state set-up for a while, Hall doesn’t really know a lot about their opposition and who is expected to be strong. 

They’ve been drawn in a pool with Metro South West (1), North West Sydney (1) and Illawarra South Coast.