Game going Down Under!

2010/02/10

SEPAKTAKRAW is going to Australia! For one week beginning Friday, schoolchildren in Darwin in the Northern Territory will get to learn the basics of the game from Terengganu Sepaktakraw Association (Pasta) trainers.

They will also have the chance to play with eight under-18 academy trainees who will join the three trainers and Pasta chairman Dr Mohamad Omar on the trip, co-sponsored by the Terengganu State Government and Australian Sepaktakraw Association (ASA).

Mohamad said ASA president Steven Svensson had requested Pasta trainers to travel to Australia to demonstrate and promote the sport to students and physical education teachers.

"I was caught by surprise hearing Svensson talked about Pasta's track record in producing sepaktakraw players of calibre as I thought the people over there could not care less about the game," said Mohamad.

"I was also impressed when he told me sepaktakraw was voted the second most popular sport in the 2007 Arafura Games and he thought it would be a good idea for us to introduce the sport at school level."

Mohamad, who was the sepaktakraw technical adviser for the 2007 Arafura Games, said Svensson has also indicated a plan for Australia to organise school-level sepaktakraw competitions this year.

"Among our objectives for this trip is to give some pointers to ASA on the technicalities of sepaktakraw tournaments," he said. -- ZAINUDDIN MUHAMMAD