By Tania Phillips
Some of the best young rugby league players from across the South West region of Queensland were on show at the Collegians Junior Rugby League Club at Warwick at the weekend for round three of the Western Clydesdales Development Cup competition.
Now in it’s second year, the Under-17 competition features teams from Warwick and District Rugby League, Roma and District and Toowoomba City and Country.
The competition is backed and supported by Toowoomba-based Queensland Rugby League Club the Western Clydesdales which covers the entire South West Queensland region.
Clydesdales CEO Shane Sullivan said he had been pleased at the way the competition, which he believed was vital to the future of the Clydesdales, had developed this year.
“It’s very important to the future of the Clydesdales, these types of programs,” Sullivan said.
“It’s an opportunity for players to experience that higher level development program across the region.
“We have been very pleased with this second year of the competition. We have seen the program strengthen and we’ve seen more competitive games right across the four regions.
“We’re really happy with the development of the players across the south west.
“The whole of the south west is important to us, we’re no longer the Toowoomba Clydesdales we’re now the Western Clydesdales and to that point we’re very mindful of ensuring that our development for boys and girls goes right across the south west region.
“This region has a strong history of supplying players for Queensland and Australia and certainly we want to ensure that we’re part of that development of those players.”
The Clydesdales are now in their third season since returning the Hostplus Cup Queensland Rugby League state-wide competition while it will it will be the first year they have had a women’s team and Sullivan said they were looking forward to getting both teams on the field for the start of the season at the weekend.
“Our men’s and women’s, our Hostplus Cup for men and BMD competition for women, commences on Saturday,” he said.
“It’s the first year that we’ve had the BMD premiership sides in a state-wide competition. We’re excited for our female game across the region. Our 17 and 19s boys and girls have been running for three weeks now, their development has been exceptional, really proud of the way those sides have started the season. They’ve been on the road for the first three weeks playing Bundaberg, Ipswich and Sunshine Coast and won 11 out of the 12 games. The next three weeks they will be playing at home, which will be great for them and hopefully they can continue their winning streak.”
He said there those teams included kids from right across the Southwest, travelling from Stanthorpe, Warwick, Dalby and Chinchilla.
“We’ve got some players who are formerly from Roma who are now located in Toowoomba who are part of the team,” he explained.
“It shows the strength of the region as a whole and the development that has been going on across the region not only by us but by the local leagues as well, it’s all starting to take shape.
“There is a bit of a spike again in interest in the game, particularly in the Southwest where the female side of the game is growing exponentially. I think it was up 25 per cent last year and it continues to grow and grow. That’s a strong part of the game in this region.”
The Clydesdales men and women will start their State campaigns against Central Queensland this weekend in Toowoomba. The final games of the Development Cup competition will played before the main games.
“It’s hard to tell how we will go this year, I think we’ve had a strong pre-season,” Sullivan said.
“Certainly we believe we are ahead of where we were this time last year. There’s some building and I think we will kick off the season well but it’s hard to tell without seeing the opposition on the field at this stage.”
The club won’t just be playing games at Toowoomba this season with the men playing at Warwick on 29 June to take on the Burleigh Bears and the Wynnum Manly Seagulls at Chinchilla game on 26 May.
“It will be a great day out,” he said.
“Burleigh’s always tough, they were grand finalists from last year and obviously recruited very well including Warwick’s Mitch Watson who was our leading try-scorer last year. It will be exciting and hopefully he’ll get a run in that game as well.”
