Carys is a hockey star in the making

CARYS Owen is a very good young hockey player with Fishguard Ladies but she has also shown so much enthusiasm for passing her skills on to other younger players that she has been made a gold ambassador by Hockey Wales.

Carys is 16 years old and works closely in coaching the recently-formed under 7 and under 9 teams in the club with Angela Miles, who is a former player and coach at the club and still manages to maintain her interest at Fishguard Ladies Hockey Club and as the county’s Hockey Agent is charged with the responsibility of raising the standards and participation rates across Pembrokeshire.

It was Angela who nominated Carys for the Gold Ambassador scheme and she had to go to the National Sports Centre at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff, for a day’s training. She joined team mate Amelia Davies alongside 15 other would-be ambassadors who worked in groups to look at ways of getting both girls and boys more involved in the sport from an earlier age.

“We were given training cards outlining different ideas for creating and maintaining interest for the youngsters, looked at different methods of bringing them into hockey at a far younger age, and keeping them there,” explained Carys.

“That’s why we now have the under 7s and under 9s once a week at Fishguard and there is already an amazing number of really talented players. If we can keep them improving at this rate then we are going to have real strength in depth at our club – and perhaps a few international players.”

Carys made a quite early start herself because at 11 she started attending Ysgol Bro Gwaun in Fishguard and under the guidance of school coach Ellen Davies took to it like a duck to water and still enjoys it just as much now. She started out as right forward but now plays left midfield for both school and Fishguard Ladies, where Julie McAdam does a great job of coaching.

“Julie taught me the ‘vee-drag’ and how to play ‘reverse stick’ properly, and it shows what good coaching can do,” said Carys.

The practice in school under Sioned Page-Jones has also paid off because Carys has joined other talented young players like Carrianne Griffiths and Ffion Price in a team which has not only won the Pembrokeshire Schools’ title at under 14 level then twice at under 16 level, but also won the Dyfed Championships against the likes of Cardigan, Llandysul and Llanelli before going on to the Welsh Championships in Wrexham and Swansea.

“We played really well against some very good sides and although we didn’t win the Welsh title we came as high as fourth so that’s pretty good going.”

Although Carys also loves netball, where she plays wing defence for school, it is horse riding that occupies most of Carys’s other spare time as she rides her 14.2 Irish Cob, known as ‘Phoebie’ at events around the county in show jumping and cross country. She has already won a few prizes and says that now the hockey season is over she plans to compete a little more this summer.

She is lucky that in all her sport she has wonderful support from her parents Delyth and Tudor, who take her anywhere necessary to take part. In hockey it is Angela Miles and Julie McAdam that have been the greatest influences but she says that the players at Fishguard Ladies are all brilliant in the sense that everyone is prepared to help and there is a real camaraderie against a group that did well to finish in third place in their league.

On the coaching front, Carys started out by helping a few times with the club’s under 11 team and really enjoyed it so she attended a course at Haverfordwest Leisure Centre and organised by Hockey Wales to achieve her Leaders’ Certificate in the ‘4689 scheme’ which is designed to start children off in small groups of four and progress through to games involving nine young players a side.

“With our junior teams I use the training cards to help me prepare training sessions,” Carys told us.

“I try to have the emphasis on fun in the warm-up sessions and then we spend time developing individual skills which the youngsters are then encouraged to use in game situations. We also have a warm-down session and chat about what has gone on – and the feedback from parents has been really encouraging.

“One of the areas we are particularly pleased about is the increase in the number of boys attending because at one time hockey was wrongly looked on as a girls-only sport when it is very fast and physical – and the action is faster than in most other sports.”

One only has to chat to Carys for a short while to see her love of hockey and her total commitment to coaching in her sport.

Angela Miles told us,

“We are very lucky to have Carys so involved because she is a mature coach, far beyond her 16 years, and already has the younger children looking up to her for the way that she coaches them.

“Long may she continue to grace our game as a player and as a coach.”

Telegraph Sport can only echo Angela’s comments, having seen Carys Owen involved at a session, and we think it can only be a matter of time before she is elevated from being a ‘Gold Ambassador’ to the top title of ‘Platinum Ambassador’ in recognition of everything she does for local hockey!