HOCKEY: Twenty-nine years after playing his first hockey game, Adam Byrne has made his first Australian team.

Byrne started in Warwick juniors at the age of six and has been selected in the Australian over-35 team to compete in the Masters Hockey World Cup in Canberra, which starts in late March.

Along with fellow Warwick player Matthew Hagenbach, Byrne played for the Queensland over-35s, which were fourth in the nationals in Cairns.

Byrne played in midfield for Queensland and scored one goal against Western Australia.

"It is great to make an Australian team. It is obviously not the main Australian team but is the next best," Byrne said.

He played for Queensland teams each year from the age of 12 to 20, including one national U18 championships in Warwick when he was a striker.

Byrne rates Australian selection as a career high along with playing for the Queensland Blades in practise games against India at Murwillumbah and Brisbane before the Sydney Olympics.

He was a striker all his career before moving to defence when playing for Gold Coast in the Brisbane division 1 grade where he won a player of the season award in 2008 after being runner-up in 2007.

Byrne last played in the Brisbane competition in 2011 before playing A and reserve-grade rugby league for the Warwick Cowboys at wing and centre for three seasons.

He has played hockey for 27 of the past 29 years.

This season, he has played in the Far North Coast (NSW) competition after being approached by Olympian Grant Smith to play for East Ballina.

Byrne will attend a training camp in Canberra with the Australian team in the run up to the World Cup.

Hagenbach scored two goals in Cairns playing as a striker.

In other national masters news, Warwick player Dion Phillips was part of the Queensland team that came second in over 45s division 2 nationals in Cairns. He scored two goals from the midfield, one in general play and one from a penalty corner.

Greg McDonald and Rob Pohlman are still played in their state masters teams in Cairns. Warwick player Toni Cox played in the women's masters in Brisbane in her second year in state colours.