Among them will be seven judokas from the Port Augusta Judo Club.

Sam Broadwood, Josh Ramke and Ben Bailey will compete in the Under 14 competition while Leigh O’Shanunessy will compete in the seniors.

Also competing will be Sophie Burch and Matthew Freeman, who remain favourites in their cadets 17 and under age division after their wins at the International Judo Open in Canberra last month, as well as wins at the nationals competition in 2008 and 2009.

Five national team players and Steven Brown, the first South Australian to qualify for the Australian Olympic team for Beijing in 2008, will also be among the competition.

Port Augusta junior coach Martin Burch said Burch and Freeman had a good chance of claiming medals at this weekend’s meeting, despite recent changes to rules and regulations providing some hurdles.

“This year judo’s undergone a radical change as they’ve created new age divisions,” Mr Burch said.

“It’s created huge changes for the kids here, for example Sophie was the oldest in her divisions for this year so she probably would have been in the strongest position ever to take out a gold medal at nationals … but because of the changes she’s now the youngest in her age division, so it’s a big challenge ahead for her.

“Kids who are only 14 or 15 are going to be fighting with someone who might be 17 which is which is a huge difference in experience and strength and skills.”

Despite the challenge Mr Burch said the South Australian team was going in strong as a whole and said the local judokas were benefiting from training and guidance from former Olympian Kevin Freeman.

Mr Burch said the local judokas had been undergoing intensive competition style training in preparation.

“The state titles are the highest graded competition in our state for our players so it’s a very important meet for our kids to qualify for nationals.

“They have to get a result in the top three of the state to represent the state at the nationals.

“It will be a good challenge but I’m sure with Kevin they’ll be up for the challenge.

“South Australia is very, very strong. We’ve got a very good possibility of taking out all four female weight divisions in the Under 17s.”

Port Augusta is the only country club that holds the state event.

Following Saturday’s competition, a training session will also be held in Port Augusta on Sunday for all state players.

The event will be held at the Braddock Oval volleyball stadium.

Competition starts at 1.30pm.