Sunshine Coast All Schools Touch Football

On the weekend of Week 3, the Sport Excellence Touch Football Girls travelled to the Sunshine Coast for their first big competition of the year. After an early start and a long bus ride on Saturday, the girls started their trip with rock climbing, where Charlotte North, Lilika Yamada and Martine Brekhoff-Jones were particularly impressive at defying gravity. Then, after some training on the oval, the girls were thrown into six teams and competed in games such as; blind folded pool noodle sword fighting, trivia, cup stacking, long distance dart throwing and much more. The White team of Romaney Berry, Martine, Mikayla Robison, Amali Nixon, Tayah Cubby, Sienna Hodges and Jayah Hall were the ultimate champions despite the efforts of Kaiya Tom, who was terrifying with a pool noodle in hand.

The next day, it was off to the Glasshouse Mountains to play some touch. All three teams were outstanding with the Open Girls finishing runners up and the Under 15 and Under 13 teams winning the Championship. The Open Girls dominated their round games with some sensational skills. Captain Sierrah Dawson and the Year 12’s led by example, setting an extremely high standard and the Year 11’s and 10’s really stepped up to the moment. But in the final, Chancellor’s rucking and shooting was just too good.

In the Under 15’s, the girls were utterly dominant. Evie Clarkson, who was player of the final and the rest of the Under 15’s were unstoppable, winning the grand final by an extremely impressive score of 6 to 0. As if that wasn’t enough excitement, the Under 13’s won their grand final in extra time. They scored with 30 seconds to go to tie the game and then played twenty minutes of extra time, eighteen of which was played with only 3 players on each team. But finally, with sun having set and emotions at breaking point, Alexi Fabian set up Emmi Cross in the corner for the game winner. Jaida Flores was also unbelievable and due to her devastating speed with the ball was named player of the final.

We were also very lucky to have former PBC graduate, Teagan Phillips, volunteer to give up her weekend and coach the Under 13 team. She showed an extremely level head under incredible pressure and was a fantastic role model and leader for the young group of girls.

Thank you so much to all of the girls for their efforts and also a huge thank you to the parents for their support. We are now looking forward to QLD All Schools which is the biggest touch football tournament in the world, with over 300 teams competing. It will be held at the Runaway Bay Sports Centre, at the end of Week 1, Term 4 and we would love to see as many people from the PBC community as possible in attendance to cheer our girls on.

Geoff Eggert and Ty Russell, Sport Excellence Touch Football Coaches

AFL Junior Boys

A massive thank you to our PBC Alliance Partners Southport Sharks and Fraser Financial Services for their sponsorship of the junior boys AFL team's recent tour of Melbourne.

The team travelled south with the aim of trying to take their individual and team performance to the next level in preparation for their upcoming knock out finals in the Q Cup competition.

After touching down at Tullamarine in was straight off to the National Sports Museum at the MCG. The boys had some time in the interactive games section before moving through the museum itself. It was wonderful when Nate Round came across his grandfather's Brownlow medal and Riley Clark could show the team his mother's Olympic Gold medal that was on loan to the museum. After the museum visit it was on to the famous Melbourne trams to travel to our hotel. Once settled it was off to the dinner and then a team meeting for the next's day match against Albert Park Senior College. 

On a cold and rather overcast day (at least it wasn't raining) the boys arrived at South Melbourne district football club that is located inside the F1 race precinct. The Melbourne skyline made a wonderful backdrop. Albert Park jumped the undefeated PBC Reds and went into quarter time with a handy lead and then kicked the first two goals of the second quarter to go out to a twenty point margin. The Reds rallied well and kicked the next 4 goals to go into half time one goal up.

The second half saw the Reds improve their contested ball wins and run. Slowly but surely they put a gap on the opposition who couldn't go with them to run out comfortable winners. Congratulations to Deacon Streader and Dylan Patterson for their best on ground performances. 

Overall the boys were wonderful to take away and they represented the Reds well leaving a positive impression on the people they met. They received lots of recognition for their manners and general conduct.

Finally to all the relatives of the boys who came down from Queensland and from all over Victoria thank you for your support. It was lovely to see the young men supported so well and having the opportunity to catch up with family.

Neil Mackay and Danny Darnett, Sports Excellence Snr AFL Boys Coaches

Surfing Excellence

Congratulations to the 15 PBC Sport excellence surfers who represented the South Coast region at the Qld School Surfing State Championships over the last few days.  The u19 boys placed in 6 of the top 7 places with Kyan Falvey being selected in the Qld team.  Kyan teamed up with Dane Henry in the Mark Richards (MR) Shield to win the Qld title for the school.  Rico Haybittle and Fletcher Kelleher repeated this in the u16 boys MR Shield with another state title coming back to PBC.  Fletcher also won the u16 boys division with Josh Cabral and Rico Haybittle finishing 2^nd and 4^th respectively. Congratulations to Kyan, Dane, Rico, Fletcher and Josh who have made up a third of the Qld school team to compete at this year’s Australian Junior Titles on North Stradbroke Island at the end of November.

Blair Semple, Surfing Excellence Coach