No rest for the Junee Jaguars, who have had their hands full since the beginning of 2026, holding a summer competition and junior soccer clinics to keep kids active during those hot January months.
The season doesn’t start until later this year, but the Junee Jaguars are keeping the players on the ball with many different events leading up to the season.
President of the Club, Will McGrath, said, “We are getting the preseason junior clinic program back up and running for those who are keen again for the season and introducing them to some of the coaches and older heads.
“That is planned for about six weeks’ time. “It’s an introduction to soccer. If you are new to town, new to the game, we welcome anyone to come and have a go. We get a large number, which is good. We also get a development officer from Wagga to come over and do a bit of a session as well, to help some of our junior coaches who may not have had training to teach them a few skills and training aids, so that they can utilise that throughout the winter as well.
“It is to try and generate as many numbers as possible throughout the winter season, but once again, we don’t discriminate; any junior can come along and participate, and some do go play league and that, but it is more about getting kids outside, getting them participating, getting them active.
“The summer competition being run has faced a couple of set-backs due to extreme heat, but it hasn’t affected the competition too much due to the casual nature of the competition.
“It is a six-aside competition, so it’s not so much directly run through Junee Jaguars. We promote it for our socials and stuff like that, but it’s more Craig Duncan; he runs that. They’ve got a separate committee, we just sort of run it through our socials because it’s a bit easier.”
McGrath said he was very happy to see soccer continue to grow in town and still run competitions and events even during the off-season.
“It’s been good. We’ve had a lot of new islanders and people coming and participating, especially through our summer soccer, so hopefully that translates through winter and we get some good numbers. Men’s and women’s started preseason for the last three to four weeks, depending on how the weather’s been, and we have had some good numbers coming through, so hopefully we put some strong sides on the park again and look for a couple of premierships.
“Senior preseason is at Burns Park every Tuesday and Thursday, and we welcome anyone 16 or over who wants just to kick a ball more for the social side. I’m starting it at 7:30 pm at the moment, but it will move to 6:30 pm once the weather gets a bit cooler.”
– Jack Murray
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