Brolgas hit road with new blood
TOWNSVILLE’S Brolgas will make the trip north to take on FNQ Thunder this weekend.
The North Queensland Championships will be held at Barlow Park for the first time since 2019, with representative sides set to meet across Saturday and Sunday.
Senior captains Curtis Rayment and Olivia Anderson will both be blooding new talent in the representative arena in Cairns.
Rayment, no stranger to the annual clash between the North’s two top representative teams, said things had been progressing well despite the disruption of public holidays.
“We’re feeling really good at the moment, we had a great training session just last night,” Rayment said.
“The boys are very keen. There’s a lot of new guys in the squad who are really ready to make their mark and a fair few existing guys who’ll be eager to get back into it.”
North Ward’s Declan Marchioni has been marked as one to watch by Rayment, with the young half expected to bring plenty of spark no matter what position he plays.
“It’ll be interesting to see where he slots in this year, we’ve got a few different spots in mind for him. He’s got all that young flair about him, he’s always capable of doing something really good,” Rayment said.
Mainstays Matthew Fanning and Dan Cooper are also expected to step up, with Rayment describing the two as currently playing their best footy.
“Cairns always play a real unpredictable rugby – they’ll come out of the gates quite hard. We’re going to have to be ready to withstand that and take it to them in that first half,” Rayment said.
“We’ve got a lot of fast, attacking players that can be just as exciting as anything they throw at us.”
For Anderson and the senior women’s team, there are also plenty of fresh faces waiting to test themselves against the Thunder.
“For a lot of them, this is going to be their first real hitout intercity,” Anderson said.
“Caitlin Holmes, she’ll be starting for us this year. That experience she’s gathered has carried really well and she’s been leading really well.
“We lost a lot of experience from last year’s team, but everyone’s jelling really well at the moment and training’s been going good. It’s going to be an interesting contest.”