The inaugural Perth Bears Tracks Academy for rising rugby league talent in Western Australia has been launched in a historic moment for the code in the State.<\/p>\n
The Tracks Academy is the first step for West Australian players aged 14-17 to enter the Perth Bears pathways system.<\/p>\n
A selection panel comprising of representatives from NRL WA and the Perth Bears identified elite talent from around the State, including AFL and Rugby Union players to attend this invitation-only program.<\/p>\n
Further opportunities will be open for aspiring athletes to be selected for future Tracks Academies throughout the year in WA as well as North Sydney and Brisbane.<\/p>\n
The Academy was launched at the WA Institute of Sport with WA Premier Roger Cook in attendance.<\/p>\n
The inaugural two-week Academy was led by Perth Bears Elite Pathways Manager Ian Millward alongside Perth Bears Head Coach Mal Meninga and Assistant Coach Ben Gardner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an historic day for the Perth Bears but also for the entire rugby league community,\u201d Millward said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur objective is to unearth a new generation of players that aspire to play for the Perth Bears.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been blown away by the talent on show and believe the game has a very bright future in Western Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have more Academies in WA, North Sydney and Brisbane Tigers later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perth Bears CEO Anthony De Ceglie said the Academy was an important milestone for the club\u2019s goal of growing the game of rugby league in WA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have already seen participation skyrocket across the State with growth in the crucial 13-15-year-old age group rise 23% year on year on the back of the Perth Bears announcement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tracks Academy is about helping the best of the young talent in Western Australia have the opportunity to play professionally.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis first Academy is just the beginning and we can\u2019t wait to significantly expand our Tracks program in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The inaugural Perth Bears Tracks Academy for rising rugby league talent in Western Australia has been launched in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-593469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}