'Bridging the gap': Horsham Hornets launch junior development basketball program

The program, announced on Thursday, July 14, has already seen a wave of interest according to Horsham Hornets president Jon Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald said he'd been waiting in anticipation to make the announcement.

"It's a gap that we have definitely identified for a while; we were really excited to announce it to everybody," Fitzgerald said.

"My emails have been blowing up with interest already with people asking to get more information."

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The Hornets had been looking for a way to keep interested players involved, even if they didn't make a representative team.

"With our rep sides, there's limitations to how many kids we can pick," Fitzgerald said.

"The idea with this is we're bridging that gap and offering it to whoever wants to be involved... offering the ones that missed out the opportunity to keep training."

It was a concept that had been floating around for a while, Fitzgerald said.

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"In the past few years we've tried as much as we can to get as many kids on the court as possible, and obviously that has a roll-on effect with kids trying out for our representative squads,"

"Unfortunately we can't offer a place to everyone who tries out this year, so this is a way to keep those athletes on the court, keep them training and really to keep them hungry to work hard and get picked the following year."

The academy will start with Under 12 and Under 14 participants, with the Hornets looking to make it a regular part of the basketball program.

"It's definitely something we'll look to run every summer, as a way to, not only keep those kids on the court, but get them hungry to get picked the following year," Fitzgerald said.

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The academy will also open up to those domestically registered players.

"It'll prepare them for squad tryouts if they want to try out, but it'll also help them improve their skills as well, if they just want to play basketball," Fitzgerald said.

The junior development program will be lead by Fitzgerald and Beck McIntyre.

"Between us we've got a lot of years of coaching at various levels, and definitely have the experience at squad level to offer a program that's going to be very similar to what they would have been getting if they had made a representative squad," Fitzgerald said.

The program would involve weekly training sessions and is likely to run from October to March.

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