NSW Touch Football Junior State Cup in Dubbo - Nicole Grose (22nd February, 2024)

The NSW Touch Junior State Cup Northern Conference is taking place in Dubbo. It is a significant event that is expected to bring in 7,000 people and inject $4 million into the local economy. The event is important for touch football in Dubbo and helps raise participation rates. Last year's event was successful, and the fields have been well-maintained by the council. The Northern Conference is locked in for three years in Dubbo. The event also showcases the talent of touch football teams from the northern areas of the state. Road closures will be in place during the event. More information can be found on the council's website. It's a massive weekend ahead for us in Dubbo with the NSW Touch Junior State Cup Northern Conference. It's a long sentence and it's a huge event and it's coming to town for the second year. 7,000 people are expected to come from across the state to Dubbo just over the next couple of days and $4 million is going to be injected into the local economy by all these people visiting Dubbo. To give us the full wrap of what it means for touch football here in Dubbo, on the phone with us is Dubbo Touch Association President Nicole Gross. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm all right. How are you? Good. Thank you. To get us started, really what is the Northern Conference and what does this mean in regards to the scale and the importance of the event? Look, it's huge. We put a lot of hours and effort, not only into training our kids for this carnival, but also just with the preparation and the setup and working with council and working with our sponsors and local businesses who supply everything that we need. Yes, it's huge, but it's also very exciting as well. How did the event go last year? Last year was the unknown. We were so stressed and we're so worried that we couldn't pull it together, but it was actually amazing. The comments around the fields, like you'd walk around in your Dubbo Touch uniform, anyone, and people coming up to you going, this is so good, the fields look amazing, like I don't know why we don't bring these things to the country more, so yes, it was amazing actually and I'm hoping, I know that it will just go as well this year. I've actually noticed wandering around Dubbo recently that it's some of the best maintained fields that I've ever seen anywhere. Yes, council has done an amazing job and all credit goes to them. We've had nothing to do with the fields, but they've been prepping it. They knew this was happening, they knew it was on and yes, they've done amazing. I'm standing down here at the fields at the moment actually and they look great. I mean, is it now three years that the Northern Conference has locked in for in Dubbo? Yes, that's correct. So last year was just a one-off and then we had to submit a tender, well Dubbo Council submitted a tender, obviously with the support of Dubbo Touch and then the tender goes for three years, so this is the first of the three. How does this event, and especially an event on this sort of scale, assist in raising the participation rates and really the general interest in touch football in the local area? We have over 900 kids who play in our touch competition. Right, yes, that is a lot. Yes, it's a lot and it's played in a Monday afternoon in three or four time slots. It seems pretty hectic down there because we then run seniors, but I feel like each year our junior rep trials, we've had so many kids. Our junior program is going great, but that comes down to the strong committee that we have. I don't think our committee will speak of them any more highly, everyone's so committed and for a bunch of volunteers, they're damn good. I mean, you couldn't have spoken any more highly about them. How are we going in regards overall to the level of talent in touch football here against other areas of the state? Our team's just been really competitive. I mean, we've had quite a few regional carnivals. Our first one was Mudgie in November. We had a carnival in January in Orange, and then we had another one at Nelson Bay at the start of February. Our teams have actually been quite competitive with the majority making finals in those. I think this weekend is a big one, like it's all of the northern areas, so basically north of the Parramatta River as it works. We fall into that northern area just because we're a part of Hunter Western Hornet. We fall into that as well, so I think that our teams are really competitive, but yeah, this will be our test. I am expecting that we will get a few teams through the final. Well, thanks for coming on for a chat, Nicole. It sounds like a massive weekend ahead and you're going to be very busy. Yeah, thank you. No, we're very excited and just super excited for the kids. That was Nicole Grose, Dubbo Touch Association President and head of the New South Wales Touch Junior State Cup Northern Conference. It's a long sentence, but there's a lot of people coming and it's a big event. It's coming to Dubbo over the next few days and with 7,000 people expected to attend the event, there are ample road closures going to be in place from 5pm today. You can catch the full list of closures and more details about the cup itself on the council's website at dubbo.nsw.gov.au under the council news section. You're on Zoo's Breakfast!