SINGLETON will be well represented in the largest touch football tournament in the southern hemisphere, with eight sides set to show their skills this week.
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The junior squads will travel to Port Macquarie on Friday for the NSW Touch Junior State Cup northern conference, and both the coaching staff and players are confident of their abilities.
The boy's U10, U12, U14s and U18s will compete, as well as the girl's U10, U12, U14 and U16 squads.
It's been a long journey for everyone involved, with training beginning as early as November for some players.
After battling through searing heat over the past few months and partaking in some other competitions, U18 captain Liam Harris said he was excited for the event.
"It'll be my last competition of juniors so I'm definitely excited to get out there and have a run with the boys for one last time," he stated.
The 18-year-old revealed that while travelling can be frustrating, and getting up early on the day of a tournament isn't ideal, he doesn't believe it will effect the squad too much.
And having been part of the representative sides since U12s, Harris is far from phased himself.
Despite patchy form in the lead up to this week's event, he's positive the side can cause some headaches for opposition.
"With the two other competitions - it's probably prepared us well," he said.
"We probably didn't play the best in the last competition, but it just gave us something to work on and work towards for this weekend."
That sentiment is shared by Singleton Storm representative touch football president, Michael Kirkpatrick.
Having overseen the progress of all teams throughout the pre-season carnivals, he said it's hard to truly fault anyone.
"There's been 100 per cent effort and reasonable results, nobody has really been dominating but they're all competitive," he said.
"I think they've all got an equal chance to be honest, the draw has just come out and... it'll be close, it doesn't take much to get there or fail."
They will compete against sides from the likes of the Central Coast, Taree, Hornsby, Newcastle, Northern Beaches, Forster, Nelson and Port Macquarie.
The tournament is played in a 'round-robbin' fashion, with sides placed into pools with each team fixtured to play each other.
Finals will then be decided, with the top teams going on to compete against the winner of their age group in the southern conference, which will played in Penrith on March 7.