GRIDIRON:
THE 19-year-old coaching savant dubbed “The Meticulous One’’ by fellow Gold Coast Stingrays coaches has revealed how the club plans to conquer the Gridiron Queensland Sunbowl today.
Connor Brewster is young enough to play alongside the colts under-19s himself but instead will direct proceedings from the sidelines as the offensive co-ordinator and playcaller for both the team’s colts and juniors squads.
The volunteer coach spends 15 hours a week designing plays, implementing offensive strategies and studying opposition game film to identify loose threads he can help unravel when his offence takes the field.
Brewster has built the pass-happy colts attacking playbook from scratch, leaning heavily on the strengths of Queensland representative quarterback duo Cynan Tomkins and Goor Chapari.
“I look for basic tendencies when I’m watching film and try to match them with basic offensive concepts,” he said.
“If you dress those concepts up all fancy, defences make minor mental lapses so our basics can trump their basics. If we can instil half a second of doubt in their minds our guys can use their athletic advantages.”
With Brewster calling the shots, both teams have navigated their 10-game seasons undefeated.
“With the juniors, we’ve played Spartans three times this season and beaten them by bigger margins each time,” Brewster said.
“We’re confident we have a good game plan (for the Sunbowl) through film study.
“With the colts I’m more nervous.
“The Rhinos are very talented so it’s much more trying to plan around their strengths and minimise their impact.
“We’ve identified their defensive line can give us an issue, so it’ll be lots of quick passing.
“We’ve got a few concepts up our sleeve, formations that give them something they haven’t seen before.”
The colts will enter the Sunbowl without a true running back after an Achilles injury ruled out starter Braydon Kondratiew one month ago.