Live stream: Mareeba State High v Mackay State High, Aaron Payne Cup, Round 2

William Veitch left Mareeba shellshocked with two blistering early strikes, and Brandon Jorgensen added another, as Mackay opened their account in style. See the Cowboys Challenge/Payne Cup REPLAYS.

Mackay State High School rugby league captain William Veitch dashed for more than 110m in seven devastating minutes to sweep his side to its first win of the 2024 Aaron Payne Cup season against Mareeba State High.

Mareeba were left shellshocked as Veitch’s twin strikes sent Mackay ahead 12-0 inside 10 minutes, setting the stage for a 28-10 victory in the second round of the competition.

Veitch ran 60m untouched to open the scoring for his school in the opening minute of the contest on neutral ground at Jack Manski Oval in Townsville.

He then repeated the effort with an even more remarkable run, bursting around the outside of the defence for a 70m dash only to be brought down at the tryline.

His teammates finished off the movement a moment later to cap off the nuclear start to the fixture.

Mackay’s long-range show-stoppers didn’t stop there, with Veitch’s outside man Brandon Jorgensen turning on the afterburners himself to outdo his skipper on an 80m sprint to the tryline, surviving an ankle tap at the finish line to extend the lead to 16-0 at the halftime break.

With the gauntlet thrown down, Mareeba answered, opening the second half with a long range try of their own inside 60 seconds of kickoff.

Dynamic lock Jason Hastie, Mareeba’s finest player for the second week in a row, split the defence with a powerful run before finding his own wing speedster in Nathaniel Ross to score between the posts.

Mackay erased that headway when halfback Talan Cottom deftly chipped into the in-goal, finding centre Mason Ryan-Ellul with a fortunate bounce to lead 22-6 with 13 minutes remaining.

Tiny winger Edwin Henderson crossed in the corner to keep Mareeba’s hopes alive but the match was finalised with another brilliant score from a Mackay kick.

Five-eighth Jake Peters lofted an exploratory cross-field kick for bench flyer Kaileb Krstic, who met the ball at its highest point and twisted mid-air to somehow ground it inside the corner post despite strong defensive attention.

The win moved Mackay into second in Pool B on the Aaron Payne Cup ladder, behind undefeated St Augustine’s.

The Cairns school shapes as Mackay’s greatest rival this season because only one team will emerge from Pool B to contest the semi-finals.

MACKAY SHS 28 (William Veitch, Jordan Chandler, Brandon Jorgensen, Mason Ryan-Ellul, Kaileb Krstic tries; Brody Moore 3, Kaileb Krstic goal) def. MAREEBA SHS 10 (Nathaniel Ross, Edwin Henderson tries; Jake Bombardieri goal)

Cowboys Challenge and Aaron Payne Cup round 2

COWBOYS CHALLENGE

Twin tower props Charlie Riggs and Zach Carroll were the dual-engine juggernauts that carried Mackay State High School to a comprehensive 36-0 victory over Mareeba State High in the Cowboys Challenge on Thursday.

The mulleted front rowers were the spearheads of a Mackay pack that run riot through Mareeba’s defence in the first half.

Riggs opened the scoring inside 90 seconds and Mackay kept up that thumping tempo to score at just under a point per minute in the first half at Townsville’s Jack Manski Oval.

With easy momentum through the middle, Mackay’s field general five-eighth Libaan Hajiyussuf and fullback Zac Campbell assumed control of the match.

Hajiyussuf kicked with precision to find winger Terrance Pedro for a simple try in the ninth minute, then had the favour returned in the 20th when a Pedro offload gifted Hajiyussuf a simple dive at the line to score.

Campbell’s ability to sidestep a defender is notable but it was his playmaking that rewarded Mackay with two tries, assisting centre Brock Hansen and for winger Pedro’s second score.

Powerful backrower Rocky Hancock scored two breakaway tries with unflinching straight running.

In a well-beaten side, Mareeba captain and hooker Cayden Brown impressed with determined driving tackling despite giving up dozens of kilograms to the Mackay forwards.

Mareeba was able to tighten up defensively in the second half to concede two tries after the break, having given up five in the first.

MACKAY SHS 36 (Charlie Riggs, Terrance Pedro (2), Libaan Hajiyussuf, Brock Hansen, Rocky Hancock (2) tries; Thomas Bassett (2), Zac Campbell (2) goals) def. MAREEBA SHS 0 at Jack Manski Oval in Townsville

Check out the full Queensland Schoolboys Round 2 live stream schedule below. Click the links to watch other matches.

PREVIEW

Mareeba State High School has sacrificed its shot at Aaron Payne Cup finals glory for the chance to forever change the lives of footballers in Far North Queensland’s Tablelands.

Those young talents will be on show when Mareeba takes on Mackay State High in the second round of the Payne Cup, with the clash exclusively live streamed on KommunityTV on Thursday.

North Queensland’s flagship Aaron Payne Cup competition is governed by strict NRL National Schoolboys Cup rules which dictate that schools may only select students from within their four walls to compete.

Mareeba applied for and have received special exemption to draw talent from neighbouring schools, and have paid the ultimate price by forfeiting all competition points for the season to do so.

Coach Clinton Cifuentes said it was a sacrifice Mareeba was prepared to make for the chance to expose locals to the potentially life-changing opportunity of regular matches in front of NRL talent scouts via the Kommunity TV live streams.

With no finals campaign to consider, Mareeba players have five games remaining to chase their professional rugby league dreams – starting this week against Mackay State High.

“We’ve played our first (against Holy Spirit Mackay); now our boys have five chances to put their names up in lights and that’s the message they’re all being given,” Cifuentes declared.

“Every time they step on the paddock that’s a trial for the NRL. Rip in, get out there, be disciplined, focus on the one per-centres and put your best performance on the paddock. As long as they do that their destiny is in their own hands.”

Mareeba State High won’t play in the Payne Cup finals this season. Picture: Evan Morgan

Cifuentes said that without the exemption, talented players like Linfard Lui, a Torres Strait Islander boarding at Herberton SHS, 90 minutes south of Mareeba, were limited to a short-lived junior representative season with the Northern Pride or one tournament with Peninsula schoolboys.

“That’s at the start of the year, but then there’s no other representative footy for this young fella (Lui), whereas now we can access him, bring him down and put him out on the park for six games. Hopefully a talented kid like that, he’s the next Robert Lui,” Cifuentes said.

“We’re looking for the next Dallas Johnson. There’s talented kids out there in the bush who are out there to be spotted, if they can play consistently well for these six games.

“It’s always been a passion of mine to give the boys up here on the Hill the opportunity to be seen at this national level, so I put the proposal into the NRL at the start of the year and luckily enough they said yes. The only trade off was that we can’t feature in the finals.

“You never know, in the future the NRL might say this little pilot program of ours has worked and they might let us compete (in the finals) but at the moment we’re just happy to be in the competition and giving our kids six games to be exposed to a different standard of rugby league.”

With star backrower Lui expected to be unavailable for this clash with Mackay in Townsville, Cifuentes said he was excited to debut Atherton SHS and Northern Pride under-19s forward Seth Stein in his place.

A line-bending prop and second row prospect, Cifuentes hailed the rangy 17-year-old as an NRL-calibre potential, having picked up the game rapidly since his first game just two years ago.

Originally published as Live stream: Mareeba State High v Mackay State High, Aaron Payne Cup, Round 2