LA Appointed Director Announcement
Lacrosse Australia is pleased to announce the appointment of Paul Mollison to the Board, as Director of High Performance.
Paul was re-appointed having served this position since 1999. He was also recently appointed the Chair of the World Lacrosse Women’s Rules Sub-Committee having been on the Sub-Committee for 11 years. Paul was on the Board of VLA, WLV and LV for 23 years (including VLA Secretary 4 years & Match Committee 8 years, and WLV and LV HP 13 years). With the Footscray club, Paul was a Committee Member for 38 years, with 16 years as President.
When asked about his appointment Paul said, “I am pleased to continue this important role and contribute to the advancement of our Australian Teams. We have introduced many innovations over the years and we now face a much remodelled landscape of world competition, as well as the expectation of lacrosse being invited to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles and then the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane. Our Australian Team program is now vastly different to what it was 10 and 20 years ago when there were only 5 Australian teams. We now have 9 Australian Teams of Men’s and Women’s Field (Senior, U23, U20) as well as Men’s and Women’s Sixes and Box Lacrosse.
For each World Championship there is also a new requirement for every country to qualify, at an event to be held 2 years before each World Lacrosse event. Australia’s qualifier events are the Asia Pacific Lacrosse Union APLU – ASPAC Qualifiers. So in effect, we will now have each of our 9 Australian Teams playing a world event every 2 years.
There is much to factor in for our Australian athletes, coaches and staff, of their High Performance commitments together with their club and state teams. It is very important that we establish a National approach from all states of a uniform annual calendar (each state playing the same code during the same months) for each of Sixes, Field and Box to complement each code and to successfully co-exist, as well as for National Championship events to continue as an effective product. Achieving a National Calendar will benefit of all our stakeholders and our pursuit for podium finishes at world events.
I am very much looking forward to the challenges ahead and to further progress our High Performance capabilities to compliment the tremendous passion and commitment exhibited by our Australian athletes, coaches and staff, year in year and year out”.
With Paul having now recommenced in the HP role, preparation, planning and further announcements of the following Lacrosse Australia programs will be published as soon as possible.
2023 Australian Men’s Team - June 2023 - World Championship, San Diego CAL USA
2024 U20 Australian Women’s Team - July 2024 - World Lacrosse U20 Women’s Championship, Hong Kong