Rugby League Gold Coast season report card: All Clubs
The Gold Coast Bulletin reviews all the highs and lows of the 2020 Rugby League Gold Coast A Grade season, club by club. Today: the Mudgeeraba Redbacks
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The Gold Coast Bulletin reviews all the highs and lows of the 2020 Rugby League Gold Coast A Grade season, club by club. Today: Currumbin Eagles
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GRAND FINAL WEEK COVERAGE
■ In Pictures: Gold Coast Rugby League Grand Final Day
■ ‘Hope you know I’m a good person’: Haunting final text fuels GF dream
■ UNVEILED: RLGC A Grade Team of the Season
MUDGEERABA REDBACKS
Ladder: Fourth (semi-final defeat)
Wins: Tugun (22-10), Burleigh (20-18), Ormeau (30-28), Currumbin (38-14)
Losses: Runaway Bay (20-32; 12-34), Southport (10-38; 16-22), Burleigh (14-28)
Leading Tryscorers: Josh Bukowski (8), Will Brimson (5), Brent Woolf (3), Henry Garrett (3), Ben Senior (1)
Rating: A-
Mudgeeraba defied expectations for a first-year A Grade squad who finished within a game of the grand final.
The 2020 season was no fairytale and Mudgeeraba were not perfect but with 32 players used over the season and with 26 due to return in 2021 the year has been an overwhelming sucess.
Season Highlight
At the start of the year the goal of qualifying for the semi-finals was lofty if not outright absurd. Defeating reigning champions Burleigh in round four and winning three-in-a-row after that proved to players and coaches alike that their dream was not as unbelievable as it first seemed.
Season Lowlight
Injuries cruelled the year for the Redbacks, most notably when gun five-eighth Will Brimson suffered a season-ending injury just weeks out of the finals series.
Broken jaws, pulled hamstrings and more forced Mudgeeraba to dig deep within themselves but they’d rather have had a clean bill of health for their maiden finals push.
Team Backbone
Mudgeeraba’s portability players from the Tweed Seagulls, particularly in hooker Brent Woolf and the aforementioned Brimson at five-eighth, showed a squad of A Grade rookies how to conduct themselves in the toughest competition of their lives.
Most Improved
Young Jacob Schimke skipped straight from Under-20s to A Grade in 2020 as an 80 kilogram lock with all the skills of a fullback, hooker and any other position the Redbacks needed. Pound-for-pound Schimke was one of the competition’s most impressive young players and one with a bright future if he continues to grow.
CURRUMBIN EAGLES
Ladder: Fifth
Wins: Ormeau (28-22; 50-22), Burleigh (18-20)
Losses: Burleigh (18-22), Tugun (12-14; 18-20), Southport (34-10), Runaway Bay (22-24), Mudgeeraba (14-38)
Leading Tryscorers: Josh Walker (7), Cole Geyer (7), Talor Walters (3), Luke Jurd (3), Jarrod Gill (2)
Rating: B-
Season Highlight
The emergence of young stars Ji van Heerwaarden, Bayley Desmond, and Cole Geyer has set the Currumbin Eagles on an upward trajectory for future seasons.
Currumbin didn’t find the success they were hoping for in A Grade but premierships at every other senior level is proof something is going right.
Season Lowlight
A five-game midseason losing streak condemned the Eagles to missing the finals. It’s a sore point for the club because four losses were decided by four points or less.
Team Backbone
Middle forwards Rory Lillis and Ayden Lee were missed greatly by the team when they were unavailable for selection, which was roughly half the season each. If they got onto the field together Currumbin were a different team.
Most Improved Player
Cole Geyer scored a place on the interchange bench of the team of the season, illustrating just how far he has come from an Under-20s prospect to a valued contributor. There is room for growth in his game which is an exciting thought for the club ready for a leader to step up at No.9.
TUGUN SEAHAWKS
Ladder: Sixth
Wins: Ormeau (52-28), Currumbin (14-12; 20-18)
Losses: Mudgeeraba (10-22), Burleigh (0-66), Runaway Bay (18-28; 20-22), Southport (8-30; 6-40)
Leading Tryscorers: Tim Cassidy (5), James Toole (4), Solomon Torrens (2), Mitchell Backler (2), Kurtis McDonald (2)
Rating: C+
Season Highlight
Down by a score to Currumbin with 30 seconds left on the clock.
Enter stage right: Solomon Torrens, breaking through the midfield to secure a memorable derby win for the Seahawks.
Completing the clean sweep against their southern rivals in another thriller later in the season was as good as it got for Tugun in 2020.
“If we don’t make semis we just want to make sure we beat Currumbin,” coach Clint Barends said.
“That’s just as, if not more important, to us.”
Season Lowlight
There were ugly losses, some uglier than others, but a cruel run of injuries was what turned Tugun sour on 2020.
In their final match against Southport Tugun could only field 10 A Grade players, with another seven hauled off the field after their reserve grade match to back up against the semi-finals bound Tigers.
Team Backbone
In a down year nothing could stop Josh Harvey from pouring his soul out for the club.
Harvey began the year playing 50 minutes per game in the Seahawks front row but by the season’s conclusion injuries forced him to carry the load for 80 minutes a game.
He pushed himself through the strain for the betterment of the team.
Most Improved Player
Mitch Backler was a new recruit to Tugun in 2020 and after starting on the wing from round four his tenacity saw him moved into the midfield to play lock - at just 80 kilograms.
The improvement he showed throughout the season was recognised by his coaches.
ORMEAU SHEARERS
Ladder: Seventh
Wins: Southport (24-16)
Draws: Runaway Bay (20-all)
Losses: Tugun (28-52), Burleigh (36-48), Currumbin (22-28; 22-50), Mudgeeraba (28-30), Runaway Bay (12-22)
Leading Tryscorers: Jalen Tangiiti-Turner (5), Ono So’oailo (4), AJ Ma Chong (4), Conner Toia (3), Craig Chapman (3)
Rating: C
The wooden spooners get a passing grade because the bright sparks illuminated the darkness of a one-win season.
Southport were semi-finallists and Ormeau raised the bar to beat them and they were the only club to prevent Runaway Bay from winning.
Losses to Currumbin and Mudgeeraba were an unlucky bounce away from being wins.
No one at Ormeau is pleased with how their season ended but the Shearers did not earn a failing grade.
Season Highlight
Ormeau’s best performances fell in the aforementioned games against Southport and Runaway Bay, but the club’s true highlight was in delivering their juniors onto the A Grade stage.
Zane Prophet and Coen Rankmore joined Lazareth Sua as homegrown Ormeau A Graders this year, which is key to the club’s growth as a northern powerhouse on the Coast.
They’re not there yet, which is why players of the class of Kurtis Rowe, Conner Toia and Ono So’oialo have been parachuted in to prop up their depth.
Once that pipeline is solidified the Shearers will present an almighty threat to the status quo.
Season Lowlight
The Shearers ended on the worst possible note with a 50-22 capitulation to Currumbin, ensuring they would take home the wooden spoon for a second straight season.
That loss rankled because Ormeau knew they were a better side than their record showed.
The easybeat tag they had worked so hard to eliminate against Southport and Runaway Bay will follow them into 2021 unless they can clean up a defence that allowed scores of 50+ to teams that did not qualify for finals.
Team Backbone
Enforcer Andrew Petaia and lock AJ Ma Chong were undersized middle forwards who inspired teammmates by their willingness to punch above their weight.
Coach Peri Creamer described Petaia as the pound-for-pound toughest front rower in the competition and Ma Chong as a five-foot-nine Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.
The pair will form a nucleus that will serve Ormeau well into the future, if the Queensland Cup doesn’t split them up first.
Most Improved Player
Ormeau junior Liam Hori-Clark was pulled from Reserve Grade to take on the most talented A Grade competition in recent memory and more than held his own.
The 21-year-old played across the centres and wings and became a valued contributor.
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