News – Briars Sports Club

Briars @ Thornleigh Squash News

2018 Briars Squash Parkes Tour Report

Friday the 26^th saw 8 of the Briars @ Thornleigh Junior Squash players embark on a trip to Parkes in the hopes of taking the title. Saturday saw the tournament kick off to a bang, with all of the kids achieving strong results. Saturday was to prove quite challenging for division 1 players; Dan Godwin, Kyle Piggott and Sam Smith with them all having to play 5 matches in one day. Unfortunately Sam Smith was to suffer an injury to his leg, forcing him to pull out of the tournament. At the end of the day, the juniors placed amongst the top positions of their divisions.

Sunday was to see some epic squash from our players in their division finals. Kyle Piggott managed to win his final in 4 games, having previously lost to his opponent in 5 the previous day. It was to be an all Briars final with identical twins, William and James Slade playing off, with William to be the victor in 4 games. Strong performances from siblings Kieran and Kevin Willathgamuwa saw them through to the finals of their respective divisions, with Kevin winning his and Kieran losing out to an in-form local, Henry Kross. Maja Maziuk also won her division, seeing of rival Kaitlyn O’Neil from ACT. In the U19 boys, Dan Godwin was to win the final in 3 games, having only dropped 1 game out of 7 matches.

Thornleigh Squash would like to thank Briars for funding the bus that took the players up to the tournament. The juniors are looking forward to next year, where they hope to repeat their excellent performances.

Dan Godwin

William & James Slade

Kevin Willathgamuwa

Kieran Willathgamuwa

Kyle Piggott

Maja Maziuk

Kieran Willathgamuwa – U11 Boys A Runner Up
William Slade – U13 Boys Winner
James Slade – U13 Boys Runner Up
Kevin Willathgamuwa – U15 Boys Winner
Maja Maziuk – U15 Girls Winner
Kyle Piggott – U17 Boys Winner
Dan Godwin – U19 Boys Winner

September 2018 – Update

Very proud of our Briars Squash Team at the 1st Club Nationals on the Gold Coast led by capt. Rexy with some inspirational performances, TukTuk and Tooley up against international opposition from Denmark and Malta did amazing and had the gallery on their feet with huge applause every point won, Bambi was the sacrificial lamb Sunday morning’s 9am and 4th match in 3 days following team tactic talk on way back from the The C at 4.30am. Carruthers pulled out his magic 20 y o wood to bewitch his oppo.

First business luncheon with #AllistairMcCaw (Elite Performance and Mind Set Coach) on the Gold Coast today. On the eve of the official opening of our new #CarraraSquash Centre with Six #squash courts as legacy from the recent #CommonwealthGames. In attendance legends in squash Geoff Hunt and Michelle Martin, guest speaker Brenton Rickard (swimming world champion),Jon Haines (Head is football Gold Coast Suns) interviewer Scott (Parky) Rollinson. And Happy birthday Dale Robbins SA Director. Thank you to our sponsors Ray White, BLK, Mecure, KDV Sport City of Gold Coast, AIS.

Briars squash legend Pizza JoeCaristo made a guest appearance with Rhonda .. great to catch up ..

Big Thanks to MAJCON sponsor of the Briars squash team.

Now planning international tour to World Masters 2020 in Poland and partnering with Brad Hindle’s Daisey Hill.

Those interested pls contact Rex and I for the tour details.

All in all a brilliant concept “The National Club Champs” inspired by Briars ethos and we look forward to many more to come. Next year there is talk of an Egyptian international coming over to play for Briars as the guest player .. can’t wait.

Next stop, 28-30/9

Darwin and AJC

Yours in squash,

Mick Alphabet
Tour Manager

August 2017 Update

Whats New

Thornleigh Squash & Briars Squash have been extremely busy building our junior support programs and expanding the new bar & Gym facilities that were installed earlier this year.

Briars junior one day Open 17
NSW Briars Talent Development Squad has been a great success
T-Bar launch
Junior Pennant
Senior Pennant
Annual Dinner

Briars Junior Open U17

This year we welcomed 5 boys from Aylesbury Grammar School from Birmingham shire in the UK to compete in the one day event. We had a total of 49 entries over 5 divisions. All juniors played with great respect and sportsmanship. The top 3 in each division were are below:

Div 1 Winner: Jacob Ford (Coffs Harbour) Runner Up: Marcus Connor (UK) 3rd Place: Haani Quereshi (Briars)

Div 2 Winner: Harshit Gupta (UK) Runner Up: Tom Hampson (Willoughby) 3rd Place: Mitchell Black (Briars)

Div 3 Winner: Dan Godwin (Briars) Runner Up: Elliot Abney (UK) 3rd Place: Georgie Lane (Duneedoo)

Div 4 Winner: Kenneth Lamb (Willoughby) Runner Up: Rishi Deshpande (Knox Grammar) 3rd Place: Tom Lacy (Willoughby)

Div 5 Winner: Jordan Ghattas (Wyong)

Runner Up: Marley O’Shannessey (Parkes) 3rd Place: Maja Maziuk (Briars)

Next year we would like to submit some form of sponsorship from Briars Sports to purchase trophies and/or prizes for the event up to $300 if possible

NBTDS (NSW Briars Talent Development Squad)

The NBTDS has been formed to help juniors with talent progress their skills by getting focused attention from a pool of experienced coaches & players. We run the squad training every Sunday that they do not have Tournaments or state camps on.

We will get 1 camp in each month based on this year’s calendar making a total of 12

Coaches include:

Adam Schreiber – Former Australian team representative and state coach
Michelle Martin – Former world no. 1, Board of Squash Australia
Matt Kawalski – Former World no. 50 & NSW Squash board member
Anthony Thomas – Sydney Premier league, Level 2 coach and assessor
Bryan Knight – Top 15 in Sydney, Level 1 coach
Geoff Davenport – Coaching for 25 years and been state coach of SA & WA, World Masters over 50 champion
Simon Carruthers – Former top 100 player and coach

We have 22 kids in the squad with an average of 16 showing up each session. We have only been charging them $20 each for the camp and all money has been going back to them for team outfits etc. We pay coaches from time to time but thank fully most volunteer.

We hope to gain funding for equipment, Squad uniforms and to pay a select few coaches for their time. We will use this squad to further develop new coaches for the future.

T-Bar

The new T-Bar set up has had a tremendous impact on the atmosphere of the club. Mcleish Wines are available with their top selling Semillon winning over the club members.

Below the Live music Open Mic events have been bringing in a crowd to the new look club exposing us to a new market segment in a family friendly area.

Junior Pennant winter 2017 coming to an end

The 2017 Winter pennant Semi Finals are this week @ Knox Grammar with the Grand Finals being held at Thornleigh Squash on the 19th.

Briars @ Thornleigh teams end of round positions are:

Briars 1 – Div 1 – 3rd place (Semi Finals)
Briars 2 – Div 1 – 4th place
Briars 3 – Div 3 – 4th Place
Briars 4 – Div 7 – 2nd Place (Semi Finals)
Briars 5 – Div 9 – 4th place
Briars 6 – Div 9 – 1st place (Straight through to Grand Finals)
Briars 7 – Div 10 – 6th place

Autumn Pennant 2017

We had a huge mix of results in this year’s Autumn Pennant with

Sydney 1 – Briars 1 lost their grand final to Northmead

Sydney 3 – Briars 2 – Lost Grand final and came 2nd

Sydney 3 Briars 3 – Lost Semi-Final Finished 3rd

Division 2 – Briars 4 Finished 3rd

Division 4 Briars 5 – Finished 4th Place

Division 5 Briars 6 – Finished 4th Place

Division 7 – Briars 7 – Grand Final Winners!

Division 8 – Briars 8 Finished 6th place

Division 11 – Briars 9 Finished 4th place

Division 12 – Briars 10 finished top of the table but lost Grand Final

Division 14 – Briars 11 – Got the wooden spoon and finished 6th place

6 out of 11 Briars teams made finals

This next Spring Pennant we have 13 Briars teams which we have grown from 8 teams we started with 4 years ago.

Annual Dinner

We are well underway in planning for this event. We have the date 11th of November set.

Speakers

Guest speakers and MC we are approaching and waiting to hear availability is Chris Dittmar – Dittmar is widely considered to be the “best player never to have won” one of squash’s two biggest titles. He finished runner-up at the World Open five times now turned sports presenter and Triple M Radio host.

Sarah FitzGerald – Former World No.1, WSF committee, Squash Australia Board

Luke Lewis – Cronulla Sharks Representative

Setup and focuses

We have been advised that 150 people is our max capacity at the Briars club
We are awaiting a drinks package from Briars and food package from the backyard
We have booked in a company to run a trivia night for attendees
Raffle prizes are being sort to raise money for auction events
Games to raise money will be run throughout the night to engage the audience
Poster to be made by Briars admin once speakers are confirmed