It’s Runaway season
Hanging around the boys you get that winning hunger. FIVE-EIGHTH MITCH BARRY
HOW do you follow on from an unbeaten premiershipwinning campaign?
By doing it all again. Having tasted such success last season, the Runaway Bay Seagulls have set themselves the lofty goal of a repeat performance.
“Of course we do,” fiveeighth Mitch Barry said.
“You always want to be undefeated every season.
“You never like losing, at any given point, so of course we want to replicate that.”
The Seagulls’ desire to oneup not just the competition but themselves is driven by the playing group – one Barry loves being involved in.
“That’s just the culture around here. Hanging around the boys you get that winning hunger,” he said.
“We tasted it last year, now we want to keep that alive.
“You never want to lose again, especially after an undefeated season.”
Barry has extra motivation to return to the top of the mountain this season.
He missed the 2020 Rugby League Gold Coast decider, out with an achilles injury, and was forced to watch his teammates’ celebrations from the sideline.
With Guy Hamilton’s return to the Intrust Super Cup with Burleigh, Barry will be installed alongside Jimmy Poland in the Seagulls halves.
Before a tackle is made in anger, Barry boldly declared he and Poland were ready to be the premiere halves pairing in the Rugby League Gold Coast A-grade competition.
“It’ll be me and Jimmy Poland, probably rotating with Alex Bishop,” he said.
“Jimmy is a legend of the club; legend of Gold Coast rugby league.
“He’s a great player. My job is to just feed off of him and what he has to offer.”
Another Seagull eager to raise the bar this year is frontrower Codey McLaughlin.
The 21-year-old Runaway Bay junior came off the bench for the Seagulls last season and, unlike Barry, was there on the final day in September when Bay lifted the trophy.
Now another year older and hungrier, McLaughlin has been handed extra responsibility by coach Nick Gleeson.
The back-row could soon become his full-time home – or at least an option this season, as cover for injury and Intrust Super Cup call-ups.
“I played back-row for the first time against the Hornets in our trial two weeks ago … I guess you can say (I play) front-row and secondrow now,” McLaughlin grinned.
“I’m hoping for some more minutes this year.
“We’ll call it a breakout year. We’ll see how I go.”
Despite Bay’s success last season, McLaughlin knows premierships are no easy feat, let alone unbeaten runs.
The pressure is on the Seagulls to deliver once again, now with the rest of the competition gunning for them.
“It will be a little more difficult this year without a lot of the Queensland Cup boys,” he said.
“And now we’ll obviously have a target on our back. But that’s fine.
“We just have to keep going, keep winning. It’s the exact same as last year.”