St Patrick's Catholic Primary School teacher Peter Moraschi takes it one step further and is helping mould promising rugby league players from across the state.

Moraschi will coach the NSW team at the School Sport Australia 12 years and under rugby league Championship in Canberra next week.

However, the school teacher hadn’t always set out to coach at the top school level.

He was first exposed to coaching when the played for the Griffith Waratahs in the 1990s and started again at a school level 12 years ago.

From there he slowly climbed the ranks to the Wagga diocese team and then the Mackillop side at NSW PSSA carnivals.

It was whilst coaching Mackillop that Moraschi realised he wanted to go further.

“When I started taking teams to the PSSA level, you see the NSW coach and how the selectors work and from that I set myself a goal to be the state coach,” Moraschi said.

“To work with the other coaches who all have a single goal – to get the best out of the best players in NSW – and to be able to work with those players, that’s what attracted me to it [coaching].”

Moraschi felt privileged to be able to work with some of the best young rugby league players in the state.

He said it was amazing just how good these kids are.

“As you can imagine, from thousands of kids who play rugby league in NSW, these kids are the top 17, so their skills are at another level,” he said

“That was an eye-opener for me – just how good they are.

“It’s [my job] mainly getting them to work as a team, that’s the biggest thing at this level.”

Moraschi said the support he receives from St Patrick's Catholic Primary School makes it all possible.

“It’s nearly about five weeks all up so it’s a lot of work and commitment and the school has been behind me 100 per cent through it,” he said

NSW will play its first game on Sunday against traditional rival Queensland who beat NSW in last year’s final.

The tournament will wrap up the following Saturday.