Bears baffled by rep picks

BURLEIGH coach Jimmy Lenihan admits he was surprised by his in-form side’s lack of presence in the Queensland Residents representative team to play on Sunday.

The Residents squad is picked based on the opening nine rounds of the Intrust Super Cup season, with those players to be pitted against a NSW Residents side selected from the equivalent secondtier competition south of the border.

Burleigh have won five straight to charge to second on the ladder, including 56-4 and 48-0 scorelines against Papua New Guinea and Redcliffe in their past two starts.

However, there will not be a single Bear in the game-day 18 to be coached by Jon Buchanan. Jesse Arthars was initially selected – before pulling out to join the Titans NRL squad – but even he is a Gold Coast player more so than Burleigh.

“You’d think we would probably have a couple of blokes in it,” Lenihan said.

“We had a few in it last year and we had a few injuries so in some ways it’s probably not a bad thing. I’m sure they have got their reasons for who they have picked and it’s a pretty good side. I’m not sure who has full control over that, whether that is Buchanan or the QRL itself but I think some of the selections are interesting.”

Either way, the Bears are

flying heading into a weekend off and still have Dylan Kelly, Blake Leary and Jamie Dowling to come back in the next six to eight weeks.

“It’s good, especially if we do have some (injury) problems at the back end of the year, we have some quality around that we can inject and a lot of those blokes can play a few spots too which is really positive,” Lenihan said.

That quality of depth, which has further been tested when the likes of Pat Politoni, Dylan Phythian and Sami Sauiluma have been sidelined, has been of particular satisfaction.

“It has certainly given everyone the confidence that we can replace parts of the side,” Lenihan said.

The match will kick off 1.10pm Sunday at Dolphin Stadium in Redcliffe. Next up for Burleigh is a trip to Cairns next weekend as they aim for their first win over the Northern Pride since 2016.