The Southport School coach Mike Wallace hails players’ character following 23-20 win over BBC

AN ever-expanding resilience has put The Southport School within touching distance of the GPS First XV crown after coming from behind to topple Brisbane Boys’ College in Saturday’s Round 6 blockbuster.

AN ever-expanding resilience has put The Southport School within touching distance of the GPS First XV crown after coming from behind to topple Brisbane Boys’ College in Saturday’s Round 6 blockbuster.

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A battle between two unbeaten sides lived up to its billing as TSS overturned a 15-3 halftime deficit to prevail 23-20 at Toowong.

Having breathed life into the contest with converted second-half tries from JoJo Fifita and captain Zane Nonggorr, the visitors then turned to goalkicking winger Hamish Roberts with the score at 20-17.

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Coming off a record-breaking 43-point haul against Brisbane Grammar School, Roberts sealed victory for TSS with two penalty goals, the second of which came with less than two minutes left on the clock.

The triumph means last year’s runners-up can seal their first premiership since 2017 with victories over Gregory Terrace (away) and Ipswich Grammar (home) in their final two fixtures.

Marlon Jones in action for The Southport School on Saturday. Picture: AAP Image/Richard Waugh

With a sizeable BBC crowd watching on, TSS coach Mike Wallace said his troops had shown a never-say-die spirit.

“What today was built on was a lot of character and character is built doing things people don’t see,” Wallace said.

“Character is built when you get up early in the morning and come to school so you can fit your gym session in before school so you don’t miss any classes.

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“Character is built around the boys, at Christmas time, doing their own training in their own time to make sure that they’ve got a base level of fitness.

“The boys are prepared to sacrifice some things in order to turn up for each other week in, week out.”

Having earlier this season spoken glowingly of his players’ ability to stick to their game plan, Wallace said BBC had thrown new tests at them.

TSS players celebrate after beating BBC. Picture: AAP Image/Richard Waugh

“BBC are an exceptionally good rugby team and they really challenged us, probably in a way we haven’t been challenged in a few weeks, and so our guys took time to adjust to that,” he said.

“I think one of the hallmarks of our team this year is they’ve got a real determination to continue to trust their processes.

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“They stuck to all the things that we trained, they kept believing in themselves, kept turning up and ultimately we started to make headway.

“Once we started to make a little bit of headway, that gave the boys the confidence to continue to challenge BBC and adapt to what they were doing. Ultimately that was good enough.”