Carnival kicked off against Cape York on Saturday morning, in what was a very scrappy affair. Despite dominating for a majority of the match Capricornia was unable to capitalise on the scoreboard and in a low scoring affair Capricornia ended up going down by 4 points.
In the second match of the day Capricornia took on arch rivals Mackay, in a much more polished performance. The teams composure and structure was much more evident and the use of the football was a lot better, and at the final siren Cap ran away 6 goal winners.
Day 2 of the carnival saw Capricornia needing to win both games to have a crack at the championship title for the first time ever. First up was Townsville who has dominated over our region for the past few years. After a bit of a slow start Capricornia quickly picked up the pace and showed its dominance and came away with a 3 goal victory. A great result against a region that has been training together since last November.
This setup a crack at the championship in the last match of the carnival versus the undefeated Cairns, a team that our Under 16's have never been able to beat. From the first bounce it was an extremely physical encounter with skipper Connor Russell and youngster Ari Miles showing some real physicality through the centre of the ground. After a tough battle for the first half Cairns went into the break leading by 1 goal. In a position where history would show that we were unable to bounce back from the second half from the Capricornia boys was nothing short of fantastic. Small on ballers Josh Davidson, Isaac Smithwick & Jacob Redsell showed no fear in the heat of the battle and there disposal all day was spot on, our tall timbers Jack Grangier and Liam Evans who battled all carnival in the ruck were again strong and a 'raging bull' performance from Liam late in the game was inspirational. When the final siren sounded Capricornia had broken the hoodoo and recorded its first victory against a dominant cairns outfit. The reaction of the guys will never be forgotten as they all streamed onto the field and embraced each other as if they had just won a grand final.
This win meant that the Capricornia team had finished equal first with Cairns and whilst eagerly awaiting the final decision the decision was not to go our way as Cairns were awarded the trophy based on percentage. Despite not taking away the trophy you could not wipe the smiles of the boys face and we could not be prouder of the squads effort to take out second, our regions best ever result at the NQ Championships.
Throughout the weekend captain Connor Russell lead by example all the way, whilst Vice Captains Bayley Malkki and Josh Davidson were just as impressive. Josh Davidson took out the regions player of the carnival with Michael Galligher taking out the coaches award in his first outing for our region, Kane Haua was named best first year player.
The dominant performance saw us equal our best with 5 players moving through to the NQ Squad with Connor Russell (Gladstone) Jackson Smith (Gladstone) Kwabye Boake (Brothers) Josh Davidson (Panthers) & Clifford Timms (Yeppoon) all gaining representative honours. Whilst there were strong performances throughout the weekend Bayley Malkki, Jacob Redsell, Tylor Boyd, Dylan Crowther and Tyson McMahon can all consider themselves very unlucky not to be joining their team mates.
We could not be prouder of all the lads for there effort and maturity shown throughout the carnival. It was a great bunch of blokes to work with and despite not coming home with the silverware they can all walk with their heads held very high after this performance. The standard has been set now and we hope that the region can continue with these strong performances in years to come.
Brad Matheson, our coach would just like to thank a few that made the trip up to Airlie possible and run as smoothly as possible. Andrew McMahon was absolutely fantastic and his previous experience was great and without his assistance on the sideline we certainly wouldn't have had the rotation system we were able to implement. Steve Smithwick was certainly kept busy delivering messages 'regularly' and Jo Smithwick ensured the lads were fit and firing from a medical perspective. Clint miles, Wayne Redsell and Josh Redsell made sure all the lads had plenty of water in what was an extremely hot weekend and also provided some great knowledge and direction during the breaks. Scott Smithwick did a fantastic job organising the weekend and was awesome with the big stick to make sure curfews were met, the results from the carnival is evidence of the great work Scott is doing in the region. Lastly but certainly not least to all the parents and family who made the journey north was absolutely fantastic, always great for a team so far away from home to hear the support from the side lines.
Last Modified on 07/04/2015 13:10