Mackay Cutters’ Mal Meninga Cup coach Andy Battaia speaks ahead of season opener vs Northern Pride

Mackay Cutters’ Andy Battaia made his voice heard loud and clear ahead of his side’s round 1 fixture, as the club revealed their Mal Meninga, Cyril Connell and Harvey Norman sides for the weekend.

Mackay Cutters Mal Meninga Cup coach Andy Battaia ahead of his side's round 1 fixture of the 2025 season on February 11, 2025. Picture: Mitch Turner

Mackay Cutters are loading up for an even bigger 2025 Mal Meninga Cup campaign, with coach Andy Battaia revealing his side won’t be pulling any punches on Saturday.

The Cutters’ fixture, at BB Print Arena against Cairns’ Northern Pride, will be their first chance to show what they’re capable of in a full-fledged match for 2025, with Battaia revealing his group is eager to showcase their talents in front of a home crowd.

“(The fans) are going to see a team that wants to compete really hard, that’s our main focus every week,” Battaia said.

After a long pre-season, culminating in a trial match against Central Queensland on the weekend just gone, Battaia said his group is chomping at the bit for a chance to crack in to the games that really count.

“The trial match gave us a really good taste of where we need to be as a team, every player in the squad got a run in that game,” he said.

“From there we’ve now narrowed it down to our top 17 for this weekend’s game. But with an extended 10-game season, the boys will be competing for spots all throughout the season.”

Battaia has named forward Tavita Panai as the team captain for the upcoming match, with the talented forward earmarked as one of Mackay’s players to watch this season.

“He was our best forward in last year’s side, and for a younger age player to win that kind of recognition is pretty unheard of,” he said.

“He’s very dominant physically in both attack and defence, but beyond that he’s just a great kid for the rest of the team to look up to and follow.”

Battaia said while his group is eager to go out and show what they can do on the field, they are also acutely aware of the challenge that the Pride pose.

Faces of the CQ Capras versus Mackay Cutters under-17 and under-19 pre-season trials at Rugby Park, Rockhampton, on February 1, 2025.

“They’re always a hard team to play, they have a lot of Cowboys-allocated players and high-level representative players, so they’re going to be tough to beat,” he said.

“For us it’s about remembering we want to perform well at home, we’ve spoken about wanting to make this a fortress. As much as we want to win everywhere we’ve put a focus on that.”

The Cutters’ senior men’s coach Adam Cuthbertson revealed that several players in the Mal Meninga squad been called upon to fill a role for his team and “didn’t look out of place,” a fact which Battaia said he took great pride in as both a coach and as the Cutters’ Head of Male Pathways.

“That’s really our aim I guess is to bring through as many local players as we can up to that level, so to see them fit in seamlessly has been really good,” he said.

Team lists

Mal Meninga Cup

1. Kooper Shears

2. ⁠Toby Woodall

3. ⁠Flynn Battaia

4. ⁠Zane Elletson

5. ⁠Rylan Misztela

6. ⁠Josh Toby

7. ⁠Niko Djukic

8. ⁠Tavita Panai (c)

9. ⁠Ryan John

10. ⁠Travis Larner

11. ⁠Joe Doyle

12. ⁠Declan Grady

13. ⁠Jack Thorburn (vc)

14. ⁠Nelson Fenlon

15. ⁠Mark Morrow

16. ⁠Kayne Smith

17. ⁠Camden Hopes

18. ⁠Sean Klassenn

Harvey Norman Under-19s

1. Jennifer Kimber (vc)

2. Ava Wheeler

3. Jaccoa Keyssecker

4. Anthea Campbell

5. Ella Webb

6. Paige Mooney

7. Caitlin Tanner

8. Ella Cronin

9. Keely Pitt

10. Mele Tupou

11. Selina Cowley

12. Shaylee Hazledine (c)

13. Bronte Clothier

14. Montana Hodgkinson

15. Ebony Temple

16. Tailor Meredith

17. Jada Cahill

18. Kiah Apps

Cyril Connell Cup

1. Lachlan Brown

2. Beau Boardman

3. Bailey Smith

4. Norman Campbell

5. Tate Funk

6. Koby Daly

7. Grange Womal

8. George Gofton

9. Eli Cookson

10. Jake Peters

11. Caleb O'Brien

12. Tom Mulherin

13. AJ Bollinger (c)

14. Jack Vella

15. Zach Carroll

16. Lawson Mifsud

17. Rocky Hancock

18. Jarred Giumelli

Harvey Norman Under-17s

1. Abby Callander

2. Keely Logan

3. Courtney Harris

4. Lucynda Tronc

5. Janesta Dau

6. Ruby Watt

7. Kaitlyn Thiedeke (c)

8. Sienna Wright

9. Ella Duncan

10. Kelsi Hazeldine

11. Trinity White

12. Takiyah Sweet

13. Cianna Faulkner (c)

14. Jade Geiger

15. Seepa Kosetatino-Liufau

16. Hannah Peterson

17. Sophie Searle

18. Jade Williams

Originally published as Mackay Cutters’ Mal Meninga Cup coach Andy Battaia speaks ahead of season opener vs Northern Pride