Eight school teams will contest the semi-finals, four in each of the Bill Turner Cup and Bill Turner Trophy, which is the boys’ and girls’ competitions, respectively, with the semi-final winners to play-off on the same day at the same venue before being crowned Western NSW Area champions.

The Western NSW Area champions progress to the round of 32 stage of the national knock-out competition for players aged 15-years-and-under.

This year the Bill Turner Cup and Bill Turner Trophy, regarded as one of the largest sports team competitions in the world, has 850 school teams from Queensland, Northern NSW, NSW, ACT and Victoria participating in the tournament.

There are 450 boys’ and 400 girls’ teams entered in 2018.

The top four schools, in both the cup and trophy, will contest the national finals series at the Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility at Speers Point in September.

The Bill Turner Trophy will celebrate 28 years of continuous operation while in the Bill Turner Cup, first contested in 1979 in the football state of Northern NSW, celebrates its 40th continuous year of operation.

Schools from right across the western region will play in Monday’s semi-finals, with Bathurst High and Kelso High with Cowra and St John’s College in the boys semi-finals, while Bathurst High, James Sheahan, Cowra and Mudgee High the final four sides left in the girls’ trophy.

Games start at 10am with the boys’ final at 12pm and the girls decider on at the same time.

All games are at Jack Brabham on Monday.