Best school player is ...
KIRWAN High products Adrian Trevilyan and Julian Christian, along with Abergowrie alumni Matty Bowen, have been recognised as some of the greatest schoolboy footy players of all time.
Fox Sports commentator Andrew Voss, who has been calling schoolboys rugby league games for more than 25 years, has named his greatest schoolboys team.
It includes schoolboys players who went on to enjoy NRL success, and others who made their names count while basking in the schoolboys’ spotlight.
Trevilyan and Christian played for Kirwan in 2019 and 2015 respectively — when Kirwan enjoyed national title success — and they both won the Peter Sterling Medal as the NRL Schoolboys Cup’s player of the year.
Bowen played for Abergowrie and was a schoolboys sensation in 1999 when the school won that year’s Confraternity Shield.
“I called my first schoolboy cup game for Channel 9 in 1994 and over the next 25 years I’ve called thousands of young players from hundreds of schools,” Voss said.
“For most, their schoolboy TV game probably stands as the biggest moment of their rugby league lives.
“Some I have called have gone on to be superstars of the NRL, or at the very least, very good players, but the fact is, the majority do not make it to the top in this ultra-competitive sport.
“I watched plenty of players I thought would make first grade – but for one reason or another don’t achieve those goals.
“It’s been one of the real pleasures of my working life to be involved in this competition.”
Voss said Bowen was “as natural a football talent as you could ever see” and heaped similar praise on Christian,