Sunshine Coast rugby union: Sunshine Beach High and Nambour Christian College ready for school competition

Students and staff at two Sunshine Coast schools are fired up for their girl’s team’s entry into the region’s rugby competition.

Sunshine Beach student Tigerlily Livingston and Nambour Christian College student Destiny Wilkins are looking forward to their school’s involvment in the Sunshine Coast rugby competition.

Schoolgirl rugby is thriving on the Sunshine Coast as Sunshine Beach State High and Nambour Christian College join the ranks of a popular competition.

The schools have entered U18 girls teams in this year’s Sunshine Coast Secondary Schools rugby tournament, which is a 10-player format, for the first time.

Organisers managed to get their opening round of the season in just before a Covid-19 lockdown put sport across the region on hold for a fortnight.

While they have a Sevens program in place, newcomer Nambour Christian College is looking forward to getting their talent involved in the larger rugby format.

Nambour Christian College player Destiny Wilkins

“They’re enjoying it and the way the girls are they just want to play,” teacher in charge of rugby Garry Camplin said.

“Throwing this extra comp in means they get to play more rugby and there’s more opportunities, which means when we take them to other Sevens competitions hopefully their skill set will be better and they’ll be more match hardened.”

Sunshine Beach school co-ordinator Luke Robertson said the school’s involvement was largely student driven.

“They (boys) came to me and said can we have one (team) and the girls have basically come forward also,” Robertson said.

“We had big success with the boys team (earlier this year) and we had a big roll up of students coming to games and staff coming to games.

“We haven’t had any games for the girls team yet because of Covid but as far as the boys (experience) it was a real Zeitgeist thing and they were buzzing around the playground and staff were buzzing and it built a lot of rapport between staff and students.”

Sunshine Beach State High student Tigerlily Livingston fires off a pass.

Robertson said many students played at the Noosa Dolphins and the creation of school team was a “reflection of the strength” of the union club.

He said the Dolphins had helped coach the students.

“It’s a really good thing happening between us and the club that we are really trying to build bridges and support the kids,” he said.

School union competition manager Luke Zeremes said it was the biggest the schoolgirls rugby season they had held, with nine teams in U18s and 12 teams in U16.

The U14 division has also returned after not being played in 2020.