GPS rugby: Nudgee College v The Southport School grand final-style season decider
MORE than 10,000 supporters are expected to flood a Brisbane high school oval this weekend to take in one of the most keenly anticipated schoolboy sports deciders in 18 years: A winner-takes-all regular season finale.
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MORE than 10,000 supporters are expected to flood Ross Oval on Saturday when Nudgee College hosts The Southport School in one of the most keenly anticipated schoolboy deciders since Y2K.
The fixture will mark just the third time since 2000 that two teams on equal footing atop the leaderboard will meet in Round Nine - creating a rare Grand Final scenario from within the regular season.
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Even the staunchest supporters of GPS Rugby can admit to grumbling about the round-robin format’s propensity for ending in stalemate when the season’s final whistle blows.
Over the past 99 years the eight-game format has dished up 14 shared Premierships, with a four-way tie in 1954 an often-referenced blight when discussing the “necessity” of adding a finals series.
But this absence of a post-season has long contributed to the competition’s unique flavour, transforming every fixture into a high-stakes encounter and generating a special atmosphere on days like this.
Rugby fans have waited six years since the last such Grand Final decider, when Nudgee (6-1) hosted a Brisbane Grammar outfit (6-1) desperate to break a 20-year Premiership drought in 2012.
Future Super Rugby players Alex Mafi, Maclean Jones, and the Tuttle brothers, Jack and James, took the field for Nudgee against a BGS side captained by Reds flyhalf Sam Greene.
Fans flicked to the match and players recalled that the only visible blades of grass remaining were those on the field itself.
In a tale of two halves that could have been pitched to a Hollywood movie studio, Nudgee rocketed out to a 19-3 lead moments before half-time.
Brisbane Grammar, playing the part of the scrappy battler, clawed back a score before the break as Nudgee’s stronger, faster forwards began to tire.
Led by Greene and No.8 Jack Cornelsen, BGS played the perfect match in the second half to unseat their heavyweight opposition, 24-37, in an unforgettable schoolboy clash.
Six years previously, The Southport School’s Jono Lance, supported by future Wallabies Rob Simmons, James Slipper, Ben Tapuai and Luke Morahan, duelled State High’s Matt Toomua in the first Grand Final of the new millennium in 2006.
Despite a roaring wind at their backs Southport’s ensemble of budding stars struggled to convert early dominance into points, entering the break with only 13 points to show for a strong first half performance.
State High, through the boot of flyhalf Toomua, kicked two penalty goals early in the second but conceded a key try to TSS winger Simon Morahan to fall behind further, 11-20.
With the wind now on their side, State High enjoyed all the possession and territory in the final 10 minutes but failed to breach the lion-hearted TSS defence.
That win secured TSS their second Premiership of the 2000s, having not raised the trophy between 1938 and 2001.
Lance, Slipper, Tapuai and the Morahan brothers would return in 2007 to go back-to-back, igniting a golden era of Southport School rugby that continues today with the 2018 First XV, who will soon attempt their own back-to-back journey.
This Saturday will see a new cast of young men enter that same Grand Final cauldron, and the only thing that can be assured is that each player, and spectator, will emerge from it greater than when they did.
The GPS Rugby Grand Final will be live-streamed from 2:00pm on Saturday 15 September here.
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