An 11-year-old Pakenham hockey prodigy will compete at the junior state hockey fives championships in Footscray in July.
Lilly Kelly will compete for the Southern Sharks, with the squad’s first training session being next Sunday 21 May.
The daughter of Cardinia Storm player Jacqui Kelly and Casey Cannons thirds captain-coach Peter Turner, Lilly Kelly has grown up around hockey.
Aged six-years-old, Lilly completed Hookin2Hockey – the sport’s Auskick equivalent – for the first time to develop her fundamental skills.
Her Dad was one of her coaches who she remembers coming to Pakenham Lakeside Primary School to develop her basics for the game.
Now, five years later, she assists with the facilitation of that program at Cardinia Storm.
To further advance her understanding of the sport, she also enjoys training with the seniors each week where she takes part in more challenging drills and gameplay, and is yet to miss a session.
Mum, Jacqui, notes she is becoming comfortable expressing herself and using her voice when training with the older crew.
Those sessions are crucial for Lilly.
While she spends a large chunk of her weekends watching her parents play and training mid-week, there is currently no junior club at the Storm so she is not playing.
“I like that it’s so quick and I enjoy running and tackling,” said Lilly, who’s a midfielder that loves scoring a goal but is hard to get past defensively.
“I tell people it’s a good new sport to try because it’s fun, you get to run around and meet new people.”
Lilly, who played hockey competitively in 2019, 2021 and 2022, had not heard of hockey fives prior to her Mum telling her about nominations recently, as recommended by a friend.
“I’m really excited about the challenge,” she said of hockey fives.
“It’ll be fun because I’ll make friends and I think it will help me when I come back and play normal hockey.”
Hockey fives is the sport’s answer to people’s desire for a faster paced alternative to traditional sports – a twenty-20 cricket equivalent.
There are six fewer players on the field per team, the pitch is less than half the size and there is no goal circle – players can shoot for goal anywhere inside the attacking half.
Another key difference is that whereas rebounding boards confine a traditional hockey playing area, hockey fives has a pitch boundary, with a free hit against the last team to touch the ball if it goes outside the lines.
Cardinia Storm, which has been well supported by the Shire, is hoping to enter a team into the Vic Juniors in term three, and may look at running a hockey fives competition in the medium to long term once the club is more established.
