The NSW under 18 women’s titles will be here next year while the Northern Women’s Half State Masters Championships are scheduled for 2020.

This has been confirmed by Hockey NSW. The under 18 titles will be held from May 10 to 12 in 2019.

“The northern masters is one of the biggest events we’ve held here in terms of player participation,’’ Manning Hockey president Debbie Monck said.

Teams will come from Sydney to the Queensland border.

“We’ve held it here before but 2020 will be the first time we’ve had the three turf fields in use.’’

In past years the association has had to use grass fields as well as the synthetic surface grass fields for the masters. This will probably be the case in 2020, depending on the number of sides involved.

However, having three turf fields will be a huge boost if wet weather intervenes.

“We had the half State here a few years ago and the weather was atrocious,’’ Debbie recalled.

“We only had the two turf fields then and we couldn’t play on the grass because of the rain. Hockey NSW had to shorten all the games and they all virtually became golden goal.’’

While wet weather is still a potential problem, Debbie said the third turf field would mean games wouldn’t have to be as drastically cut back if rain rules out the grass fields.

“Players will get more value for their money,’’ she said.

Debbie said the under 18 titles next year will provide some top class hockey – probably the best seen here.

Earlier this year the association hosted the State under 13 girl’s championship. This attracted 43 sides and was played over three days, employing the three synthetic surface fields for the first time.

“The feedback we got from Hockey NSW and from people here for the championship was really positive,’’ Debbie said.

Debbie confirmed Manning will be represented at the under 18 titles next year. However, at this stage she isn’t sure how many sides will be here.

“We should have a strong squad, we have a lot of good young players in that age division,’’ she said.

“That was confirmed with Taree High’s win at the State CHS championship last week.’’

Meanwhile six Manning players head to Western Australia this week with NSW teams to contest the Australian Women’s Masters Championship. They are Kerrie Davy, Paula Smith, Kristy Aldridge, Melissa Mendham, Linda Ferguson and Lyn Hinton.

Tony Lewis will coach the NSW 50s side.