Seagulls hark back to a grand victory
“IT was so unbelievable that we could even be in that situation”, Tweed Heads champion James Wood recalls of his club’s charge to the 2007 Queensland Cup decider.
Wood, 32, has fond memories of his fourth season of state league footy, the year a group of Seagulls defied the odds to etch their names into Piggabeen folklore.
Overcoming a stuttering start to the season plus an injury to captain Andrew Moroney, Tweed rapidly gathered momentum to surge all the way into the grand final where they would trump a powerhouse Redcliffe side 28-18 at Suncorp Stadium.
It’s a feat the Seagulls will this weekend commemorate 10 years on, ahead of their Round 12 clash with the Dolphins at Piggabeen starting at 1.40pm tomorrow.
“Redcliffe in those days were every bit a juggernaut that the statistics say they were,” Wood, the last man standing from Tweed’s premiership side, said of the five-time winners.
“They had a lot of success back then, they had a scary amount of grand final appearances and the team they were able to put on the field … at times they were unbeatable.
“No one expected us to win. We just had a bunch of kids that grew up around the Gold Coast or went to school around the Gold Coast or the Tweed.
“That year catapulted a lot of us into being sort of household names in that competition and then from that some guys got opportunities to progress their career.
“I think people were sort of waiting for Seagulls to fall over … that (triumph) put Seagulls on the map because that’s the big prize to win.”
Wood scored 19 tries in 23 games that season, a figure matched by excitement machine Shannon Walker (20 games) who lit up the Queensland Cup competition with some incredible plays “only he could do”.
Other key names in the line-up included Tweed stalwarts Nathanael Barnes, Brad Davis, Matt King and Tim Maccan, scattered around NRL veteran David Myles.
All up, it was a team Wood said was characterised by tenacity and hunger.
Fast forward 10 years and it’s another David v Goliath scenario as last-placed Tweed prepare to take on the ladderleading Dolphins.
There is no hiding from the fact it has been a grim first 11 rounds for the Seagulls but promisingly, the very fighting qualities that underpinned their 2007 campaign have started to emerge in the past fortnight.
They ground out a 6-4 loss in Cairns before seriously threatening fourth-placed Easts in an eventual 28-16 loss last weekend.
But with star-studded, cashed-up Redcliffe in another stratosphere, Tweed must take inspiration from evergreen centre Wood and his oddsdefying teammates of 2007 who will be watching on from the Piggabeen stands tomorrow.
Tonight, Burleigh will chase their third win of the season when they take on the Cutters in Mackay. that