GPS Rugby 2019: Brisbane Grammar School season preview

Brisbane Grammar have recruited the services of a Queensland Reds prop for the 2019 GPS rugby season, poaching him from Marist College Ashgrove. Read the full school preview here.

For a time, Ballymore and the Brisbane Grammar School ‘Snake Pit’ were the best venues in Brisbane to watch top class rugby.

Throughout the 70s and 80s future Wallabies aplenty would make the treacherous journey to the heart of Brisbane Grammar’s Spring Hill campus to square off with its gatekeepers, future teammates in Gold including Greg Martin and Cameron Lillicrap.

The Brisbane Grammar School crowd in 1992.

The roar of the crowd, from students hanging off balconies like monkeys from the science block towering over the western end of the ground was worth an extra man on the field, such was its advantage for the home side.

“You definitely knew the team was being supported,” Lillicrap said.

“The band was playing, the crowd would be singing, every space you could see was full with five, six thousand people crowding to catch a glimpse.

“As a player it was like playing inside a cauldron with thousands of people standing on the edges cheering down at you.”

The rugby itself is nearly unrecognisable from the game Lillicrap played as a schoolboy but the passion for the school jersey has never faded.

Brisbane Grammar celebrate a win in the GPS rugby. Picture: BGS

“If you watched games from my day, we tried to emulate the style that the senior teams played in those days,” the Queensland Reds scrum doctor said.

“There just wasn’t the same emphasis on defence, more of a strong attacking influence.

“While the game itself has changed, it’s exactly the same enthusiasm and passion for their schools.

“That’s one thing that has never changed.”

● GPS PROFILE: Toowoomba Grammar

● GPS PROFILE: Brisbane State High School

Brisbane Grammar’s reputation as the team you needed to beat to win the title has dulled in recent years.

Since the move away from the ‘Snake Pit’ to the lush greens of Northgate in 1997 the school has won just one trophy, in 2012.

Restoring pride in the jersey will be the ultimate goal in 2019 because no team could replace the loss of Team of the Decade players Emile Tuimavave, Daejarn Asi and Dennis Waight in one season.

Anthony Mathison joins Brisbane Grammar after success with Marist Ashgrove. Picture: AAP Image/Richard Walker

The recruitment of title-winning Marist College Ashgrove coach Anthony Mathison as assistant coach is a shrewd appointment because the former Reds prop is one of Queensland’s finest in developing talent.

Brisbane Grammar will hope he can help rookie props Lochie Pheely and James Peirce take the step from talented Queensland Under-16s reps to First XV stars.

Flanker Ben Hains has been awarded the captaincy and lock Anthony Buswell will be his deputy.

Ben Hains will skipper Brisbane Grammar. Picture: AAP/David Clark

The standards they set for the rest of an inexperienced First XV will be vital if Brisbane Grammar is any hope of taking the fight to the competition’s alpha dogs.

Director of Rugby Phil Mooney said the team’s success would depend on their ability to outwork the rest of the competition.

“We won’t be the biggest team in the competition so we have to be the best prepared and adaptable,” he said.

“The boys are going to have to work hard because the way Paul (Warwick, head coach) prepares the team, we’re reliant on everyone in the team performing their role and trying to play a fairly well-rounded game.”

Brisbane Grammar will open their season in Round Two against Ipswich Grammar School because they have the bye in Round One.

GPS Premierships: 7

Most recent: 2012

Courier-Mail’s BGS Team of the Decade (2010-2019) so far

1. Jack Straker (2010)

2. Cody Blackhurst (2012)

3. Emile Tuimavave (2018)

4. Jack Cornelsen (2012)

5. Michael Gilbert (2012)

6. Pat Morrey (2013)

7. Fraser McReight © (2016)

8. Levi Aumua (2011)

9. Jakob Morrison (2017)

10. Sam Greene (2012)

11. Dennis Waight (2018)

12. Daejarn Asi (2018)

13. Josh Birch (2012)

14. Matt Marsden (2013)

15. Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow (2017)