During his youth Patrick gave up Archery and pursued other  sports participating in Australian Rules Football, State Rugby, Athletics, Indoor Cricket & Outdoor Cricket, Tennis, Surf Life Saving, Rowing, Triathlons, Tae Kwon Do, Weight lifting etc.

 

Fortunately for Archery, but not so much for Patrick, in 1999 he was in a serious fall during an Army Reserves exercise and permanently injured his spine.  He had to give away most of his pursuits and spent some time re-finding the right hobby for his new way of life. After playing with table tennis, model painting, slot car racing and pistol shooting, he felt life just wasn’t worth it if he couldn’t participate in a real, challenging and competitive sport.

 

Patrick dug out his old hunting bow in late 2003, which he hadn’t shot in over 10 years, and headed to the local archery club. With-in weeks, he had beaten all the other competitors at the club.  With-in a year he had cleaned up the State Championships and with-in two he had become the National Target Champion.

 

Patrick continues to break all the state records in 95% of the events.  He beat the Australian Record in an Indoor Fita 2006, only to have it broken on the same day by another shooter in Sydney.

 

The highlight of Patrick’s career was January 2008 scoring 1404 in the Canberra Australia Day Fita Star.

 

 

 

Patrick is married to Rachel and together they have a son, Scout.

To contact Pat:

 

Fax:            08 85526722

E-mail:       patsarchery@bigpond.com

Patrick Coghlan’s Biography

Pats Archery

When you want to get it right first time

Patrick Coghlan grew up in Adelaide South Australia.  He was originally introduced to archery as a 7year old boy, at Southern Vales Archery Club.  At first his father wouldn’t let him shoot arrows with points, so every shot bounced off the target.  When he progressed to arrows that would “stick”, his main ambition was to robin hood his father’s arrows. Eventually he progressed to larger goals, by winning the Tyro Tournament later that year. He was also fortunate enough to be coached by Ros Johns when he was this age (Olympic Gold Medalist, Simon Fairweathers’ original coach too).