Twenty-three of the region’s most promising rugby league players gathered in Armidale for NSW Rugby League’s Northern Indigenous Camp.
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Former NSW Origin players Andrew Johns, Brad Fittler, Danny Buderus and Mark O’Meley, as well as current NRL players Latrell Mitchell, Joel Thompson and Connor Watson, joined the group for cultural workshops and on-field training on Sunday and Monday.
Players came from Newcastle through to the Gold Coast and across from Moree to participate in the camp hosted at SportUNE.
Fittler said by getting out to country areas, he hoped to encourage players to stay within the sport and aspire to play for NSW at Origin level.
"For a while Joey and I have been talking about the effects of Greg Inglis,” Fittler said.
"We believe it is on our watch that we can't have people playing in NSW thinking that we aren't going to look after them.
"It is very important to us so Greg's decision to play for Queensland, he thought they were going to look after him better than NSW.”
The program also provides a platform for young up-and-comers in rugby league to learn about professionalism and cultural values in the sport.
"Obviously these guys are all good rugby league players but what we wanted to do is involve some of the cultural things into it, their indigenous heritage, understanding where they come from and what it means to their families and to themselves to be successful and give them some leadership skills,” NSWRL Coaching Analyst Matt Parish said.
"This football component is just a small part of what the whole two days is about.”
Fittler hoped the players are able to take the skills they learn at the camp back to their home towns to implement them locally.
"The key is they are from all different areas, we need them to go back and be leaders,” he said.
"We just talk about really simple standards that you can implement at training that if a big group of people do it, it can make a huge difference. Simple things like being on time, being in uniform, some civil standards at training, it is not hard but if a lot of people are doing it, it makes a massive effect.”