|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
ADDED MONDAY 18/08/2008 Photogalleries of Saturday can be found at:
2008 SCHOOLS UNDER 15 TOURNAMENT, NOOSA What a spectacular day at Noosa. The footy field was very dry, but the day, what a cracker. Plenty of QRU and ARU hierarchy and dignitaries in attendance at the Under 15 titles. Lots of players going around, and a few that can really play, a few really hot prospects from Peninsula, Jordan Tighe the young flyhalf from Met West and IGS, but again, in the games that I watched, awfully hard to go past Chris F'Sautia (how it is spelt in the programme) in the game against the Darling Downs. He scored 3 or 4 or 5 tries, and missed a couple of others, demonstrated a big hit in defence, and has a marvellous fend, not unlike the big Greg Inglis one. Expect to hear plenty more of this lad. The 13 from South Coast also showed he can play the game pretty well. The Downs boys got a bit of a touch up in this game, and they didn't really react to how they should play against a side like this. It looked like a few boys went missing under the physical onslaught, which can happen, the scrum got ripped open and it all fell apart from there. Anyway, we will write some more as the day goes on, and put some photos up over the week. I probably will be in strife for taking them, but I did, so we will see what happens on that front. I think the Downs boys can beat a very poorly disciplined Met North side this afternoon. (I note that the Downs boys went down to the Met North side in the end for a very creditable 4th place finish..) It was a fairly consummate carnival performance from Met East, sweeping all before it in reality. They had good players playing well across the park, very strong at 10/12/13/15 and a really good 7/8 combination. Unit skills were strong, and they competed for everything very aggressively at the tackle/collision zone, and that is what rugby is essentially about. The Downs guys, in the game I watched, just couldn't get their hands on the pill, must have lost 5 or 6 of their own scrum feeds in the first half, lineouts were scrappy to say the least with Downs throws being messed up, and the pressure being applied on inside backs by the East side was immense. As well as being very physical, fast and competent, they also played a great choking pressure game.
Downs on day three should have known how they were going to play, and been primed for a massive set piece performance, it all started out of that scrum, and then to play quite narrow, and eke out some field position, play set piece to set piece and slow the game right down, and try to frustrate those free running outside backs of the Met East side. Going wide was a poor option, as the Met East centres and wingers defended and turned over possession very well. Macalister Gee, the Downs 10 will be seeing these guys running at him in his sleep. There is nothing like playing in a forward pack that shuts a side down at 10 as effectively as this Met East side did. I thought Macalister did a pretty fair job behind a scrum that was massacred. The Downs backrow just failed to compete as well at the tackle zone, pretty much all ball was in poor field position, and was scrappy. The Met East side were strong across the park, pretty much did everything well. It was excellent to see the South Coast side, with only 4 TSS boys in it, beat Met North in their semi final. Met North was heavily laden with lads from GPS schools, that probably would have been expected to dominate this outfit from the South Coast. GPS rugby does not have to be, and should not be regarded as the centre of the Qld rugby universe, and this game just proved that there are people outside this "elite" area that can play the game pretty well. There were none better in this semi final than the South Coast outside centre, Nick Oui. He was on the ball all day, had good game sense, tackled fiercely. It will be interesting indeed to see where he pops up in 2009. Hopefully he stays where he is and forces people to look outside the system at him and others playing outside the recognized system, if in fact he is not already committed to an NRL side. He was very good in any case. Others to impress on my day in the sun were William Inu from Tully SHS, playing at 10 for the Peninsula side, his backline counterpart Michael Coghill playing at 13, Jordan Tye playing at 10 in the Met West side and at IGS. Add to that list the 7 and 8 from Met East, Nick Malouf and Dan Lane, both from Churchie and the 10, Andrew Muirhead, 12 and 13, Elisha Palupe and Chris F'Sautia all from State High, and the 15, Tyson Elisaia from Churchie would have been my picks for the day I watched. More photos to come, just requires time, did get some good ones though as it turned out. You just have to keep checking back.
|
||||||||
