Representative teams
SVL and YSVL sides coached by national-level staff. Two trainings and a game day every week, training that keeps running to the end of the year, and a say in how it runs.
Two competitions we enter
These are separate competitions with separate entries. The Sydney league is what a representative season is built around. Good Neighbour is an extra our players can put their hand up for if they want it.
SVL and YSVL
The Sydney Volleyball League and its youth competition, and the reason our representative squads exist. A full season of weekly fixtures against clubs across the city, graded so you play at your level, finishing with finals.
Selected through our January trials.
Good Neighbour
Australia's largest and longest-running open volleyball tournament, held in Canberra each November. Over sixty years old, 200+ teams across seven venues, with divisions from entry level through to Honours.
A separate entry, and entirely up to you. Plenty of our players go, nobody has to.
Who we field
Trains · Two nights a week
Trains · Two nights a week
Trains · Two nights a week
Trains · Two nights a week
Why we keep training
Most clubs shut the doors when the season ends. We keep the courts open — and the players who use those months are the ones who look different by February.
You keep what you’ve built
Skills are habits, not achievements. Passing and serving sharpen with repetition and fade without it. Train through the break and you come back to a game that still feels like yours, instead of spending six weeks recovering ground you already covered.
Time to work on the hard things
In season, every session points at Saturday. Out of season nothing is due. That is when you pull the jump serve apart, learn to hit line, or rebuild a platform that has always been a bit off — the changes that take months and get worse before they get better.
Trials judge the day, not the year
Selectors pick what they can see. Twenty minutes in a hall, against players who have been in a gym all summer. Turn up rusty and you get judged on your worst week instead of on what you can actually do.
You get to enjoy it
No ladder, no selection pressure, nothing to protect. Just a gym, your teammates, and the parts of the game you actually like. Play out of position, try the things that do not work yet. For a lot of our players these end up being the best months of the year.
What the season asks of you
- Coach education — every rep coach is accredited and works to the club's playing model
- Scrimmages against other Bears squads and invited clubs
- Pre-season one-day competitions, with training running through to the end of the year
- A physio-approved conditioning and recovery program
- Film of every game, cut for the tactics session
- A presentation night at the end of the season to celebrate the year, with awards for each squad