Canberra's representative girls welcomed home

Handball ACT welcomed home Ellen Kromar, Holly Tupper and Mariel Soulard who proudly represented the Australian u17 team at the recent Pacific Cup in New Caledonia.  Despite losing to the home team, the girls gained valuable experience and as Mariel Soulard explains, they never gave up.

Our trip to New Caledonia - by Mariel Soulard

Ellen Kromar, Holly Tupper and I  were honoured to represent the ACT and Australia at the annual u17 Pacific Cup, from the 4th to the 9th November, in New Caledonia. We were selected after having represented the ACT team this July in Coffs Harbour.

We had a training camp in Sydney from the 1st of November to the 4th where we met the rest of the team. The sessions, lead by our coach Jessica Fearnside of NSW, focused on getting to know each other and learning to play as a team.  We had to be billeted out to NSW players' families and we are very thankful for their generosity.

We played four games against New Caledonia. Two games were close (losing  by 5 and 6 goals) and the other two we lost by 10 and 15 points. Despite the results, the girls felt that they played well and were proud of our achievement, given it was the first time we had played as a team . Each match was a different challenge but we never gave up and played our best until the very end.

Our  team landed in Tontoua Airport on the 4th of November.  We then had a 4hour bus ride to Poindimie, with the girls from the New Caledonian team. We stayed at a boarding school there four nights. The accommodation and meals were excellent and we really enjoyed the local cultural experience! We felt very welcomed and we were very happy to be there .

We  played three games in Poindimie and then drove to La Foa for our last game on the 8th of November. We said our final goodbyes to the New Caledonian girls after the match and everyone was very sad. We then stayed overnight in a really nice "ferme-auberge" and caught the plane back to Sydney as a team the next day.

The ACT girls then parted from the NSW and Queensland girls and caught our plane back home to to our families that evening.

The best part of the trip was making new friends, particularly with the girls from the New Caledonian team. They were very  nice and hospitable. We shared time at the beach, swam, played beach volleyball, talked and laughed a lot. We were all happy to get to know each other and are looking forward to meeting them again soon!  New Caledonia is a beautiful place to visit and they would love to go back again.

Finally I would like to thank our families, coaches from ACT and NSW, our team managers and every person that helped and supported the team. A special thank you to the AHF for making this possible, as it was an experience that we will cherish for the rest of our lives.