West Hants invited the County to send a group of 10 year olds train and compete with their players. Ran by West Hants coaches led by Performance Coach Shane Deacon, the plan was to experience a session from a performance centre in the morning, before competing against their players in the afternoon.
The objectives were to experience being away for the whole day; being at a performance centre in a performance environment whilst being trained by leading performance coaches; to experience the intensity of training and the challenges set with a group of like-minded and technically proficient players; to get an understanding of the commitment, desire and passion required to be at such a centre AND most importantly to have a great time getting stuck in with every challenge that West Hants could come up with.
After a full on and tiring day, Devon Performance Co-ordinator Will McNally was very pleased with how our players performed. "What a fantastic day! It was brilliantly run by the West Hants coaches. It was great to see our players experience and attempt to meet the challenges of a range of surfaces – clay in particular and learning how to slide and the use of slice; going from indoors to outdoors and back again; the use of the forehand and where to recover to; PLUS all the different players they experienced playing. Overall I was delighted to see how the children tried to meet the challenges set, the positivity shown even though some of it was tough to do and completely new to them."
Grateful thanks to Shane and Debbie Hale at West Hants and to Will and Ollie Sharp for taking the players away.
