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By Liam Emerton
The Rockhampton Junior Rugby League hosted their grand final day at Browne Park on Saturday, opening at 9am and rounding up around 7pm.
The monster day featured seven grand finals split into five boys’ GFs and two girls’ big dances.
Here’s a quick wrap of each game and CQ Today’s biggest take-aways from the grand finals.
Under-13s:
We opened the day with our under-13s which saw the Fitzroy-Gracemere Sharks taking on the North Knights.
It was a really great contest to kick off the grand finals with the teams going back-and-forth throughout the contest.
Knights’ lock Darius Anderson, whose stature was intimidating in itself, was outstanding for the Norths as they looked to crack the Sharks.
But it would be the Sharkies, led by five-eight Reid Doyle, who would take home the grand final trophy to Salesyard Park.
The final score read 16-12 in favour of the Fitzroys.
Under-14s girls:
Next up we saw the Rockhampton Tigers take on the Emu Park Emus in what would eventually be a dominant performance.
The Emus would take the lead through Meika Crosland but from there it was all the Tigers.
Rockhampton would go on to score 56 unanswered points in a brutal victory.
Ariana Broughton’s hattrick combined with six successful conversions saw her score 24 individual points in her side’s impressive win.
The final score would be 56-4 with the Rockhampton Tigers holding the shield high.
Under-14s boys:
The under-14s boys was the next game on the agenda with the Cap Coast Brothers travelling to Rocky to take on the North Knights.
Both teams were poised evenly heading into the grand final with neither having a clear-cut advantage.
The match was an arm-wrestle, and when a grand final is close all it takes in that one special moment.
And that moment came through Norths’ fullback Ben Moseby who scored the try of the day.
With Cap Coast pressuring the line Moseby used his explosive speed to burst onto a skew pass from dummy-half, intercepting it and sprinting the full length of the field to score.
That would go on to ignite the Knights and help win them the contest 18-10.
Under-15s:
We just wrote about the try of the day but the under-15s grand final gave us the moment of the weekend.
The contest was fought out between two incredibly evenly matched teams in the form of the Yeppoon Seagulls and the Rockhampton Brothers.
Early on it was the Brothers who got the advantage in the contest before the Yeppoon Seagulls, led by Lakai Songoro, would battle back into the match to take a slender lead.
Under the pump, Rocky would somehow find a way to win the match.
A brilliant kick over the top by Brothers’ halfback and captain Ashton Ketchup would find the leaping Wunjun McClean, who would catch the ball before planting it for the match-winner.
A spectacular moment for the Brothers and a heart-breaking one for Yeppoon, would see the match end 22-18 in favour of the Fish.
Under-16s:
Touted as potentially the feistiest grand final on the card, the Emu Park Emus took on the Yeppoon Seagulls in the under-16s big dance.
The Emus would break through early but the Yeppoon Seagulls would towel up their rivals for a dominant victory.
Capras’ under-16s superstar Phillip Yock proved why he was one of our region’s best players, scoring multiple tries and being an unmissable x-factor for the Yeppoon squad.
The Seagulls would go on to win that grand final 36-18.
Under-17s girls:
This second and final girls grand final almost took out the moment of the weekend as well with the Rockhampton Tigers and Norths Knights coming down to the wire.
Certainly one of the closest games of the grand final day, the North Knights took an early lead and looked to be in full-control.
But a charge back by the Tigers saw them level the score at 16-16 thanks to the brilliance of halfback Mackayla Champion and the goal-kicking of Caydence Fouracre.
It would come down to mere seconds, and with momentum favouring the Rockhampton Tigers, it was to a lot of the crowd’s shock when a couple of penalties would see Norths charge up the field and score the match-winning try.
Chloe Powell’s scoot from dummy-half would catch the Tigers off-guard and win the Knights the premiership 20-16.
Under-17s boys:
And as the sun set on Browne Park the Cap Coast Brothers would take on the Norths Knights in the last grand final of the day.
The Brothers were too strong in the early goings, taking a solid lead in the opening half and never looking back.
The effort from the Knights put them somewhat in with a shot but the experience of Cap Coast would lead them to a memorable victory.
Kya Turner’s fantastic run down the left-touchline and subsequent try would be the dagger in the hearts of the Knights, helping the Fish to a 32-20 victory on the grandest junior rugby league stage.