Leading trio lifting side to a new level
IN ALL his years at the helm of Ignatius Park College’s rugby league program, Steve Lansley has never seen the side as fit as it is now.
Packed with talent and resilience, the coronavirus break has failed to squander the players’ progress and has them primed for the challenge of the Aaron Payne Cup next week.
Ignatius Park will kick off the annual schoolboys competition on Wednesday, when it takes on St Brendan’s, Yeppoon in a semi-final rematch in Mackay.
While the side has ability across the board, Lansley said there were three players in particular who would stand out among the rest in the competition and be pivotal to his side’s hopes.
Trey Valentine, Luke Jack and Damon Marshall all represented Queensland in under-15s.
Valentine, the son of former Cowboy Shaun Valentine, has also been a Cowboys scholarship player, while Jack represented Queensland Country and Marshall pulled on the Queensland Murri jersey.
But it is not their accolades that stand out for Lansley, it is their onfield character that will inspire the rest of the squad.
“I think just hunger; in a game situation, when things aren’t going your way, they’re the boys that will keep chipping away and will turn the tide back in our favour,” he said.
“They’re quite resilient, they have the ability no matter what happens to keep playing good footy and get us back in the game.
“It comes from a variety of their upbringings and the way they’ve played their footy their whole life. Particularly for those three boys, they are – for their age – quite tough, particularly mentally.
“I think that will help us as a group. Young men are very impressionable — if two or three boys lift, the young men around them will lift.”
In last year’s Aaron Payne Cup, Ignatius Park seemed on track for great things, sitting on top of the ladder and even registering a win against Kirwan High — who went on to win the competition.
However, when they went down to St Brendan’s, their hard work was erased, and Lansley said that could be a motivator for his troops.
But for him, it is ancient history. “We have a real focus as a group to say what happened in the past we can’t control and what happens in the future we can’t control, we just have to worry about the present,” he said.
“I’m big on the boys just staying in the moment, and what happened in the past is history.”
>>Find out what sets Marshall, Valentine and Jack apart at
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