BY GEORGE, BEARS WILL BE GRIZZLY

KIRWAN Bears coach Todd Wilson is adamant his team won’t be lacking any firepower, despite the omission of playmaker Ragarive Wavik for today’s showdown with The Cathedral College.

Today’s game in Mackay is a top-of-the-table clash between the unbeaten sides of this year’s Aaron Payne Cup, and the winner will be in the box seat to claim top spot at the end of the regular rounds.

Former Cowboys assistant coach Mick Crawley will be part of the commentary team for the Townsville Bulletin’s livestream coverage, which kicks off in the countdown to the game starting at 11.45am.

Wilson has been forced into a reshuffle after Wavik suffered a head cut in last week’s encounter against St Patrick’s Mackay, with the coach opting to move skipper Clay George into the halves from centre.

Jayk Gwydir moves into the centres and forward Sione Tuitupou comes on to the bench.

“We’ve had to make a couple of changes, but that’s what happens in footy,” Wilson said.

“It’s been a relatively short turnaround and we’ve only done a couple of training sessions, and we weren’t going to risk Ragarive if he wasn’t 100 per cent.

“But we’re very confident in the team we’ve put together and Sione has a good opportunity to get some minutes.”

Kirwan is the form team of the Cup, and arguably the bestperforming schoolboys team in Queensland after the first two rounds, having thumped Mackay High 46-4 and St Patrick’s Mackay 26-0.

But The Cathedral College has been raising eyebrows following their wins over St Patrick’s Mackay (30-0) and Ignatius Park College (26-8).

“We made too many errors last week, and if we make that many again we’ll definitely be defending our line a lot,” Wilson said.