Freak effort, signing horrors and a hole-in-one: Gold Coast sporting gossip
The Sniper is back with all your Gold Coast sporting gossip.
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THE Sniper is back with all your Gold Coast sporting gossip.
CRICKET
ALBERTON Ormeau veteran Shane Connors has announced his retirement from representative cricket and he believes the Gold Coast Thunder are well-placed for future success.
But the 41-year-old says admits it is not all smooth sailing.
While the Thunder won the Bulls Masters Country Challenge Twenty20 final last month, they finished runners-up for the Schaeffer Shield.
Selection for the South Queensland team then sparked controversy, with shadow player Kevin Chapman immediately making himself unavailable and Mudgeeraba Nerang teammate Josh Nelson later withdrawing in protest over the side picked.
“(The Thunder) have still got a fair way to go with the longer form and I think they took a backward step with people not being available (for South Queensland),” Connors said.
RUGBY LEAGUE/GOLF
YOUR columnist touched base with Ben Ikin prior to last month’s Blitz Golf amateur series at Links Hope Island and the former NRL star again underlined his potential on the fairways over the weekend.
Asked how he hit them at a charity golf day on Sunday, the 42-year-old replied simply: “4 under”. Not too shabby.
GOLF
NEIL Blake’s used to lightning striking three times, apparently.
The 68-year-old Helensvale golfer, with a Golf Australia handicap of 14.1, claimed a third hole-in-one at the club on Saturday, adding to the aces he hit at Waratah Golf Club in Newcastle in 2005.
The latest hole-in-one was on the 11th (136 metres) and he used a 7-iron.
AUSSIE RULES
GRAEME Downie is an optimist, but he’s no dreamer.
“I wouldn’t be tipping them for the eight,” the Suns bid team member and co-founder predicted of the men’s AFL side.
“I’m hopeful and excited because they have got some good kids in, plus a few others from last year, so if they could win a handful of games that would be good.
“But I think they are still too young to make a surge up the ladder like the Brisbane Lions.”
AUSSIE RULES
REMEMBER the iconic Gold Coast photos the Bulletin published last week to announce the Suns AFLW and AFLW captains?
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Well the public had something to say about the whole affair as well.
Perched a safe distance from the edge of the cliff at the iconic Mick Schamburg Park Lookout, Sam Virgo, Jarrod Witts, Leah Kaslar and David Swallow were all posing for a photo when an unidentified member of the public cried out “don’t jump! Football isn’t that bad!”
CRICKET
WILL Pucovski didn’t have the greatest of luck in Cricket Australia XI’s first tour game against the England Lions on Sunday but it didn’t stop him from enjoying his birthday.
The Victorian batsman, who turned 22 on Sunday, was forced off the field after hitting his head when diving for a single.
But he was in good spirits and even had a birthday cake presented to him by the team at the close of play.
Cake fixes everything.
RUGBY LEAGUE
WHICH Rugby League Gold Coast club is being tipped by rivals to have a horror A grade season after losing some of their best players to other teams?
FOOTBALL
THE Gold Coast Knights have lost some of their biggest names for this season’s NPL but coach Grae Piddick clearly isn’t worried.
Having brought in a number of new recruits to fill the void, Piddick was asked to nominate one or two stars he believed were worthy of a spot in a list of the competition’s top 20 players.
“We’ve got a pretty good team so you could pick any of them,” he said.
AUSSIE RULES
JOURNALISTS are forever told that sports stars don’t read the newspaper as a way to shield themselves from public scrutiny and instead focus on performance but the Suns AFLW girls are different.
Given a tour of their sparking new change rooms last week, it was heartening to see every single one of the Bulletin’s AFLW countdown stories, profiling each player in the team ahead of round one this Saturday, had been printed out and hung on the wall within the players’ inner sanctum.
LOCAL SPORT
WHICH local sporting club is supposedly making players sign contracts a few weeks into pre-season?
You’d think such exchange would guarantee match payments but instead the club hopes to establish a list of standards and expectations early which the contract will tie players to during the season.
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BASKETBALL
CONGRATULATIONS must go to the Gold Coast Basketball Association who achieved a rare feat on the weekend. All 11 representative teams managed to secure wins on the weekend at home, a first for the association.
CRICKET
SURFERS Paradise Kookaburra Cup captain Claye Beams had just completed a 5km run in 30C heat on Sunday when a Gold Coast journalist rang to get his thoughts on his team’s win the previous day.
When asked why he was doing it during the hottest part of the day, Beams, who scored just five runs on the weekend, said:
“I didn’t do much running (on Saturday) so I thought I should get some done.”
RUGBY UNION
Gold Coast rugby followers, get ready: a bombshell club switch is in the makings.
A team of the decade talent from a smaller club is preparing to jump ship to a competition heavyweight and transcend them into title favouritism.
The team’s coach says their new player is going to be the future of their club.
The only thing that could scuttle the move now is if the talented back can find the time off work to commit to playing.
Stay tuned.
RUGBY UNION
Lies, damn lies and statistics? So claims the president of a Gold Coast club who insists there is more to the Bulletin’s list of junior registration fees than meets the eye.
Amazing talent: Ex-NRL fullback’s shock death shatters league fans
The rugby league community has been shattered by the sudden death in Toowoomba of a flying fullback described as an ‘exceptional talent’ and ‘cult hero’.
GPS First XV rugby: Boilover on the Village Green; BBC win thriller
GPS First XV rugby featured a mid-winter boilover as TGS toppled TSS away from home, while IGS made it two wins in a row and BBC survived a gutsy Terrace revival in a bumper round 2 of action. More here.