Brolgas send skipper off in style
THE Townsville Brolgas have farewelled captain Tom Vinson in spectacular fashion with a 52-19 win over the Gold Coast Cyclones to close out this year’s Queensland Country Rugby Championships.
Wingers Daniel Chorley and Nick Poole each claimed a couple of tries at Mike Carney Toyota Park.
Brolgas coach Terry Shiells said it was a physical contest in the early stages before Townsville’s classy backline started to take advantage of the tiring forwards.
“They’ve got some large human beings so we had to wear them down a bit,” he said.
“The first few scrums they definitely put a fair bit of pressure on us, but as the sun crept in and the running crept in they got a little bit tired so our blokes were pretty good at it.”
Vinson was playing his last game in Brolgas colours before moving to Toowoomba as the skipper was also named Townsville’s best and fairest player from the representative season.
Shiells has also coached Vinson at club level with Teachers West and he said the fly half deserved the recognition for his dedication to Townsville rugby union over the years.
“He’s had a very good year. We had a couple of guys that were probably in the running for it, but he does a lot of other things,” Shiells said.
“I’ve coached him at club footy so I know how dedicated he is.
“I went back coaching club footy five years ago with Teachers and he’d done his ACL and then he started to try to play sport again and he hurt it again so he had a double ACL.
“That knocks a lot of people back and they don’t recover, but he’s fairly determined.”
The resounding win over Gold Coast wasn’t enough for the Brolgas to clinch the overall country rugby title from the unbeaten Sunshine Coast after their win over Darling Downs.
The revamped format this year saw the representative teams divided into smaller regions from Townsville, Cairns, Darling Downs, Sunshine Coast, and Gold Coast in a round robin competition.
“I think the key to it is that they’re all pretty competitive games. Even though the score got to 50 (against Gold Coast), they’re still good games,” Shiells said.
“You’re playing against completely different opposition so that’s probably the highlight.”
The Queensland Country teams are expected to be named early this week and Shiells was hopeful that the Brolgas will be well represented after suffering just the one loss this season.