Even on your worst day, home town knowledge and the support of parochial fans can be enough to lift you or your side over the line.

The Murdi Paaki Regional Rugby League Council (MPRRLC) is hoping that philosophy translates into life as well.

The Building Strong Home Teams program aims to connect people and families together with the broader community, and members of the Orange community will get a chance to see what the program is about on Thursday.

MPRRLC project officer Kyle Myers will help run the session this week at Marang Gunya, Glenroi, and hopes to help foster positive relationships within the community through sport, namely rugby league.

“The aim of the program is to connect people and families together with the broader community,” he said.

“The Building Strong Home Teams project aims to enhance parenting skills and confidence by providing parents with effective activities, information and education to assist them to build positive parenting skills.

“It will use specifically structured community sport activities as the vehicle for delivering formal parenting knowledge and skills training.”

The model is designed to produce an environment that is non-threatening, physically active and supports a team building atmosphere.

Myers believes providing a soft entry point for participants to re-engage with the broader community will then lead to a boost in volunteering numbers at a local sporting club.

“Sport is no different to life and teams are no different to the family unit,” Myers added.

Myers said the project is a new pilot program looking at ways to also increase volunteerism for local sporting organisations.

“As we all know, it takes a lot of people to help run just one game of sport, if we want kids to keep playing then we need to consider new ways that attract people to want to help,” he said.

Myers and Sport and Recreation staff did a walk and talk tour of the Glenroi community and found travel, costs, confidence and not knowing who to speak too were the greatest barriers preventing people to volunteer.

“This Principles of Coaching Course is designed to meet those needs, it’s free, it’s at Glenroi’s Marang Gunya Community Hub and local sporting clubs will be in attendance to explain how they can become involved with their clubs,” he said.

All members of the Orange community are invited to attend this fun, interactive and hands on sports coaching course.

When: Thursday 2nd March

Time: 3.30pm 

Where: Marang Gunya, Glenroi

Cost: Free- there will be a free kids footy clinic and barbecue for people who attend course at 5pm.