My take on our top juniors

[mdrew]

Jaylan De Groot. The former Parramatta Eels, but Northern New South Wales junior signed a one year contract with the Titans in late 2020 for the 2021 season encompassed the final year of his U18 eligibility, but in great news for Titans fans, in late 2021 Jaylan De Groot signed a new three year deal with the Titans.

To add to the positive news around Jaylan De Groot he extended his contract with the Titans in February 2021, with his new contract that commences in 2022 being a Titans NRL Development contract in recognition of a number of seasons of outstanding performances. Jaylan De Groot’s current deal with the Titans takes him up until the end of the 2024 season.

Jaylan De Groot is currently undertaking the 2021/22 pre-season with the Titans NRL squad as a member of the Titans Rookie Squad looking to impress Justin Holbrook and the other NRL coaches.

Also in late 2021 Jaylan De Groot was part of the Titans NRL squad that undertook a joint training session with ninety members of the Titans JTS Program.

In late 2021 it was confirmed that Jaylan De Groot would play the 2022 season as part of the Tweed Heads Seagulls Hastings Deering’s Colts squad and Jaylan De Groot is also Colts eligible in 2023.

Also in late 2021 Jaylan De Groot was part of the Titans NRL squad that undertook a joint training session with ninety members of the Titans JTS Program.

Jaylan De Groot’s first match in a Titans jersey came in January 2021 when he started at fullback for the Titans U19’s in their annual match against the Newcastle Knights in Coffs Harbour with Jaylan De Groot scoring a second half double for the Titans, both from long range, as the Titans defeated Newcastle 40 – 6 in an outstanding display.

Jaylan De Groot first touch of the ball in a Titans jersey came in just the second minute of the match when he moved to his right to field a Knights clearing kick on the bounce before confronting the oncoming defensive line.

Jaylan De Groot’s opening try of the match came two minutes into the second half and it was a typical Jaylan De Groot try. The play that led to the try started five metres inside the Titans own half. With Jaylan De Groot hovering behind the play the ball, the Titans worked a short blindside to get right centre Reef Sommerville into space down the right wing, as he was confronted by the fullback, Reef Sommerville grubber kicked back inside with the ball bouncing up perfectly for Jaylan De Groot who had followed the play as it developed on the inside. Once he took possession of the ball twenty metres out, no one got close to him as he brought the ball around to place it down under the posts.

Jaylan De Groot’s penchant to backing up and being in the right place at the right time, was highlighted once again late in the second half when he scored his second try. Outstanding offloads earlier in the movement by Jack Cullen and Samuel Shannon put Thomas Weaver into space and when the half was confronted by the Knights fullback, it was none other than Jaylan De Groot who loomed up on Thomas Weaver’s right to receive the ball twenty metres out and from there Jaylan De Groot’s speed easily took him across the line to record his double.

Jaylan De Groot also had an outstanding moment in defence early in the first half. Jaylan De Groot raced to his left as the Knights found space down the right touch line. The Knights right winger cut inside late, but instead to over running the ball, Jaylan De Groot was able to shift his momentum and take the winger ball and all. If the Knights winger had beaten Jaylan De Groot’s tackle, there is no doubt the Knights would have scored.

A week after the match against the Newcastle Knights Jaylan De Groot once again lined up for the Titans U19’s at fullback as they took on a Burleigh Hastings Deering’s Colts squad at Burleigh Juniors with the Titans winning 32 – 20 with no conversions attempted.

Once again Jaylan De Groot had an outstanding match, being his second in a Titans jersey recording yet another try scoring double as well as multiple other smart positioning and intelligent plays that are fast becoming the norm for Jaylan De Groot.

Jaylan De Groot’s opening contribution to the Titans cause in the match was when he was able to draw the Burleigh right centre after chiming into the Titans backline on the left side of the field with a direct run at him before passing to left to find left centre Tony Francis in space who was then able to charge twelve metres to the line and get the ball down under pressure five metres in from the left corner post.

In the 7th minute of the match, Jaylan De Groot was positioned perfectly to take a Burleigh clearing kick on the full near the left touch line turning back towards the try line and he was able to return the kick twenty metres to put the Titans on the front foot.

Two tackles later Jaylan De Groot moved into dummy half fifty five metres out from the line. Jaylen De Groot darted out of dummy half to the right of the play the ball, dummying to his right before slicing through the middle of the Bears defensive line before a Jaylan De Groot right foot step enabled him to beat the Bears fullback who was defending very shallow. Once he was past the fullback, Jaylan De Groot had an easy forty metre run the line under no pressure to put the ball down under the posts.

Jaylan De Groot’s second try came in the second half when he once again backed up a Titans movement of the left side of the field, through the centre of the ruck. After Kaleb Ngamanu broke through the Bears line seventy metres out, Jaylan De Groot loomed up on Kaleb Ngamanu’s right, receiving the ball thirty five metres out after Kaleb Ngamanu had drawn the fullback, for Jaylan De Groot to put the ball down adjacent to the left upright untouched once again.

Jaylan De Groot also produced a smart play which nearly led to a Titans try in what turned out to be the final play of the first half. As usual Jaylan De Groot was backing up through the centre of the ruck and after a Burleigh defender desperately knocked a pass down with the Titans on the attack, Jaylan De Groot tracked back to retrieve the ball and with the half time siren sounding, from thirty metres out put in an intelligent chip kick which very nearly bounced back over the head of the Burleigh fullback in the in-goal with Ediq Ambrosyev hovering nearby.

One of Jaylan De Groot’s impressive attributes in the match against the Knights was his defensive positioning and that continued a week later against Burleigh, including in the first minute of the second half when he was on hand to knock the ball dead after Burleigh had kicked into the in-goal. Jaylan De Groot got to the ball ahead of a number of Burleigh chasers.

Just seven minutes later, Jaylan De Groot’s positioning skills were displayed once against to defuse an urgent situation when he moved to his right to get to another Burleigh kick into the in-goal to save what appeared to be a certain Bears try. Jaylan De Groot made it three exceptional defensive positional plays in the first sixteen minutes of the second half when he had to change direction and once again defuse a Burleigh kick directly behind the goal posts.

Jaylen De Groot was on hand to defuse a try for a fourth time in the second half when in the 79th minute of the match, Jaylan De Groot positioned himself directly behind the play the ball and was perfectly positioned to take a Burleigh grubber back behind the ruck. Jaylan De Groot was unable to bring the ball back into play but if he was not positioned as he had been, Burleigh would have scored in the matches final minute.

In early May 2021 a Titans U19 side travelled to North Queensland to play an U19 Cowboys selection in a curtain raiser to a Cowboys v Broncos NRL match with Jaylan De Groot starting the match at fullback for the Titans.

In November 2020 Jaylan De Groot was named in the powerful Tweed Heads Seagulls 2021 MM Cup squad and shapes as one of a number of key attacking figures in that side. Prior to that announcement, Jaylan De Groot had been named in the 2021 Parramatta Eels U18 SG Ball squad, highlighting just how good Jaylan De Groot’s junior career to date has been, thus it is another huge credit to the Titans for getting the young man to stay close to home to further his rugby league career rather than to head to Sydney.

In the Tweed Heads Seagulls MM Cup sides second trial against Burleigh, Jaylan De Groot started the second half at fullback, even though he was wearing the No. 11 jersey. As usual Jaylan De Groot was heavily involved in his stint on the field including two try assists.

Jaylan De Groot’s first try assist came when Seagulls hooker Oskar Bryant ran out of dummy half to the right around eleven metres out from the line, drawing the Burleigh B defender before offloading to Jaylan De Groot who then threw a quick short pass to his right to put Josh Lynn over.

Jaylan De Groot’s second try assist of the match, was a piece of subtle magic. Jaylen De Groot received an inside ball after the ball was thrown to the left of the play the ball. Immediately upon receipt of the ball, Jaylen De Groot dropped the ball onto his right foot from around twenty metres out from the line. The Burleigh fullback attempted to shield the ball over the dead ball line but Jaylan De Groot refused to give up and dived full length around the right side of the fullback to knock the ball back into the in-goal for Kruze Rimene to put both hands on it. (Think Kevin Proctor in the NRL at Cbus last season).

Jaylan De Groot also started at fullback in Tweed Heads final 2021 MM Cup trial against the Souths Logan Magpies at Logan. After starting the first two quarters at fullback, Jaylan De Groot moved to the right wing in the final quarter.

Overall in the match Jaylan De Groot made a line break and also recorded a smart try assist in the final quarter whilst playing on the right wing. Jaylan De Groot’s line break came in the second quarter when he was operating just behind the play the ball. Thomas Weaver took the ball to the left before passing back to his right to Jaylan De Groot who burst through the centre of the ruck only to be dragged down just as he was accelerating away.

Late in the fourth quarter Jaylan De Groot burst down the right touchline after good work on his inside. As he was being hemmed in by the Souths Logan fullback and cover defence Jaylan De Groot grubbered kicked with his right foot inside with the kick perfectly weighted for Riley Lack who was tracking the play on the inside to get downward pressure on the ball to be awarded a try, the final one of the eight that Tweed Heads scored in the match.

In Round One of the 2021 MM Cup competition, Jaylen De Groot started at fullback against the Ipswich Jets. Early in the second half Jaylan De Groot moved to left centre before moving back to fullback late in the match.

Jaylan De Groot second a try in each half of the Seagulls 22 – 20 first up victory the first of which came in just the 5th minute of the match. Thomas Weaver took the ball down a shortish left blindside throwing a long cut out pass when he was forty eight metres out to his left to put Keano Kini away down the left touch line. Keano Kini flew down the left touchline, drawing the fullback and passing back to his left looking for Jaylan De Groot who was backing up on the inside.

The Ipswich Jets right winger got his hand in the way to knock the ball towards the Seagulls try line with Jaylan De Groot retrieving the ball to run ten metres to score nine metres in from the left corner post to cross for the Seagulls first try of the match.

Jaylan De Groot’s second try came early in the second half in the 40th minute of the match. Thomas Weaver put up a bomb to the Seagulls left corner and it was perfectly weighted for Jaylan De Groot to come through with the momentum to take the ball on the full in the in goal to get the ball down a metre from the dead ball line.

Jaylan De Groot also started at fullback in Round Two against the Souths Logan Magpies but moved to the left wing in the second half. In Tweed Heads 32 – 24 victory, Jaylan De Groot scored in the second half and also recorded a try assist in the opening minutes of the match.

Jaylan De Groot scored in the 45th minute when after Thomas Weaver backed up a break out of dummy half by Blake Mozer, drawing the Souths Logan fullback before passing to the left to Jaylan De Groot who was able to bring the ball around to put it down under the posts.

Jaylan De Groot’s try assist came in just the second minute of the match when he received the ball off Thomas Weaver on the left side of the field fifteen metres out from the line, taking the ball towards the defensive line before throwing a great cut-out pass to his left to put Keano Kini away down the left touchline and dive over to score in the left corner.

Jaylan De Groot also had a line break early in the match, when he was part of a set play down the left blind side from a Tweed Heads scrum feed forty metres out from the line. Thomas Weaver received the ball from the back of the scrum with Jaylan De Groot sprinting from the opposite side of the scrum to take Thomas Weaver’s held up pass before dummying to his left and sprinting thirty metres downfield only to be brought down ten metres out.

Jaylan De Groot’s safe hands came to the fore in the 48th minute of the match when Souths Logan kicked to his wing, Jaylan De Groot jumped high to take the ball above his head two metres out from his own line and as soon as his feet touched the ground he took off and was able to get the ball back to the twenty metre mark before finally being tackled.

A strong run in the 63rd minute by Jack Cullen almost produced a second try for Jaylan De Groot when he flew onto the ball in the twenty metre area, getting partially through the Souths Logan line before throwing a right arm off-load to Jaylan De Groot who was backing up on his left with Jaylan De Groot getting within metres of the line. Jaylan De Groot in fact was held down and awarded a penalty which Thomas Weaver then kicked to put Tweed Heads eight points in front with six minutes to go.

Jaylan De Groot once again started at fullback in Round Three in the Gold Coast local derby against the Burleigh Bears and once again was one of the Seagulls try scorers in their impressive victory.

As has become the norm, Jaylen De Groot and Keano Kini swapped positions on a number of occasions over the course of the match.

Jaylan De Groot’s try came in the 44th minute when Thomas Weaver ran down a short left blind side ten metres out from the line and passed back to his right to put Jaylen De Groot into a yawning gap who was able to bring the ball around to put it down under the posts.

In the 5th minute of the match Jaylen De Groot was well positioned to prevent a Burleigh try when he covered to his left to be on hand to take a short blindside grubber dead in the right corner under heavy pressure from Burleigh chasers.

Jaylan De Groot showed once again in the match that he is always prepared to do the hard work when he got into dummy half and darted to his right, making eighteen metres to get the ball to the halfway mark, breaking two tackles along the way.

Jaylan De Groot was also named to start at fullback for Round Four match against the Ipswich Jets and whilst he did not score, still had a strong contribution to the Seagulls victory.

As usual Jaylan De Groot hunted just behind the play the ball and in the 17th minute he got into dummy half, darting out of that position to his left to make twenty metres through the centre of the ruck to get the ball to within twenty metres of the try line.

Jaylan De Groot also produced a strong defensive play in the 22nd minute when after chasing back to corral an Ipswich line break, Jaylan De Groot picked up the Ipswich right second rower (No. 12) and putting him on his back and taking all of the momentum out of the Jets sails.

Fullbacks need to continuously focus on their positioning and it was that attention to detail that meant Jaylan De Groot was positioned correctly in the 67th minute to field a hard grubber on his own line directly adjacent to the right upright. By being in the right position Jaylan De Groot ensured that he was not trapped in the in-goal.

Jaylan De Groot also started at fullback in Round Five against the Souths Logan Magpies, scoring once again in the Seagulls 38 – 14 victory.

After being rested in Round Six, Jaylan De Groot was named at fullback for the Seagulls Semi-final against Wynnum Manly and had an outstanding match, including scoring in the second half as the Seagulls qualified for the 2021 MM Cup Grand Final.

Jaylan De Groot’s try came in the 45th minute when he backed up on the inside of Ryan Foran after the Seagulls left second rower had taken an inside kick from left winger Elijah Lui and passed to Jaylan De Groot who dived over under the posts.

Jaylan De Groot was heavily involved throughout the match with his initial major contribution coming in the 15th minute when he took the ball from the dummy half down a short left blind side making eighteen metres, breaking three tackles, getting the ball forty two metres out.

Then in the 21st minute, Jaylan De Groot received the ball once again down the left this time off the back of a Tweed Heads scrum win, making a further twelve metres.

In the 23rd minute Jaylan De Groot was on hand to scoop up a Wynnum Manly dropped ball and return it fifteen metres before being tackled but Jaylan De Groot was held down too long and was awarded a penalty.

Jaylan De Groot showcased his positioning when he whilst tracking backwards in the 25th minute he took a towering Wynnum Manly bomb near the posts to gain a twenty metre restart for the Seagulls.

In the 26th minute, Jaylan De Groot once again proved he was safe at fullback when he retrieved a Wynnum Manly grubber kick safely down low and was able to bring the ball back fifteen metres.

Jaylan De Groot produced a key try saving tackle on the final play of the first half when he got low and stopped the Wynnum Manly hooker just short of the line when he tried to sneak over from dummy half.

In the 2021 MM Cup Queensland Grand Final against the Townsville Blackhawks, Jaylan De Groot once again started at fullback and scored in the first half as the Seagulls won back to back MM Cup Championships by defeating Townsville 30 – 24.

Jaylan De Groot’s try came in the 17th minute when Seagulls hooker Oskar Bryant took off out of dummy half to his right on the halfway mark, slicing through the middle of the Blackhawks defence after veering back towards the area behind the play the ball. After he was through the line, Oskar Bryant drew the fullback before passing to his right to Jaylan De Groot who raced away to score under the posts.

Whilst his try was a key moment in the Seagulls Grand Final victory, in the 67th minute Jaylan De Groot produced the play of the Grand Final with the play not just saving the match for the Seagulls but enabling them to claim victory.

With just three minute s to go in the 67th minute with Tweed Heads staring down the barrel of a tough Grand Final loss, being six points down, Jaylan De Groot took a high spiralling bomb just two metres out from his own line and took the Townsville line on by stepping to his right before veering left before spinning counter clockwise breaking two tackles to get the ball to forty metres out from his own line and then Jaylan De Groot whilst finally being tackled was able to get a right arm off-load away to Oskar Bryant.

Tweed Heads were under pressure early and in the 6th minute, Jaylan De Groot along with Thomas Weaver and Oskar Bryant were able to stem the flow by holding of a rampaging Townsville front rower (No. 8) to stop the Blackhawks from scoring twice in the opening minutes.

Jaylan De Groot’s innate positioning sense was highlighted in the 42nd minute when he raced across to his field to get to a Townsville grubber kick well inside his own in-goal. Jaylan De Groot however was able to beat two players and somehow was able to get the ball out of the in-goal and maintain possession for Tweed Heads.

In the Queensland Rugby League 2021 MM Cup Player of the Year Award Jaylan De Groot was awarded two votes.

Jaylan De Groot made his Hastings Deering’s Colts debut in Round Six for the Tweed Heads Seagulls in their 30 – 18 victory over the Easts Tigers with Jaylan De Groot starting the match at fullback.

Jaylan De Groot also started at fullback in Round Seven against the Norths Devils, scoring his first career Hastings Deering’s Colts try in the Seagulls big victory.

Jaylan De Groot continued at fullback in Round Eight against the Mackay Cutters, kicking a conversion in the Seagulls tough loss and also started at fullback in Round Nine against Wynnum Manly.

Jaylan De Groot continued at fullback in the Round Eleven local derby against the Burleigh Bears.

Jaylan De Groot continued at fullback in the previously postponed Round Ten match against Sunshine Coast with Jaylan De Groot scoring in the 57th and 78th minute.

Jaylan De Groot also started at fullback in Round Twelve against the Central Queensland Capra’s.

After a Covid 19 enforced hiatus, Jaylan De Groot was named to start at fullback in Round Sixteen against the Northern Pride with Jaylan De Groot scoring in the 56th minute of the Seagulls big 48 – 16 victory.

Jaylan De Groot then continued at fullback in the rescheduled Round Thirteen match against the Townsville Blackhawks with Jaylan De Groot converting Brock Priestley’s 44th minute try.

Jaylan De Groot continued at fullback in Round Fourteen against the Western Mustangs and also started at fullback in the Seagulls Week One Final against the Souths Logan Magpies.

At the 2021 Queensland Rugby League Awards Night Jaylan De Groot finished with three votes for the Hastings Deering’s Colts Player of the Season Award.

During a Tweed Heads Seagulls Hastings Deering’s Colts bye week, Jaylan De Groot started for the Cudgen Hornets NRRRL First Grade side at fullback against the Byron Bay Devils.

Round Eight against the Kyogle Turkeys, in another Tweed Heads Colts bye week saw Jaylan De Groot move to the right wing against the Kyogle Turkeys with Jaylan De Groot making an immediate impact by scoring inside the opening minute of the match when he received an off-load thirty metres out and darted downfield to score with a big dive in the right corner.

Jaylan De Groot added a second try in the 24th minute when a bomb was put up towards his right wing with Jaylan De Groot jumping high to take the ball in his right hand and get it down in the right corner.

Jaylan De Groot also started on the right wing in Round Eleven against the Lower Clarence Magpies with Jaylan De Groot scoring one try and setting up another.

Jaylan De Groot scored in the 43rd minute when he was on the end of a Cudgen backline movement, receiving the ball around eight metres from the line with Jaylan De Groot diving over acrobatically in the right corner.

As noted above Jaylan De Groot contributed to a Hornets try in the 18th minute. After Lower Clarence kicked downfield from well inside their own territory, the Hornets fullback got the ball to Jaylan De Groot to space and he burst forty five metres down field. Just inside Magpies territory Jaylan De Groot stepped off his left foot to beat one cover defender before drawing the fullback and getting the ball away to his right to send his right centre away to score under the posts.

In a Tweed Heads Seagulls Colts bye week, Jaylan De Groot was named to start on the left wing in Round Eight of the NRRRL U18 competition for the Cudgen Hornets against the Kyogle Turkeys. Whilst he started the match on the left wing, Jaylan De Groot certainly did not park himself there and wait for the ball to come in his direction, with the Titans contracted youngster popping up all over the field.

Jaylan De Groot started the 2020 season as a key member of the Northern Rivers Titans U18 Laurie Daley Cup squad.

Jaylan De Groot was named to start at fullback for the Northern Rivers Titans in Round One of the 2020 U18 Laurie Daley Cup competition against the Parramatta Eels at Cudgen however the match was cancelled due to the wet conditions on the North Coast that weekend.

Jaylan De Groot started at fullback in Round Two against the Newcastle Knights and had a big day out scoring four tries as the Northern Rivers Titans thrashed their fellow NRL backed rivals.

Jaylon De Groot’s first of four tries came in the first half. Operating on the left side of the field, Jaylan De Groot received the ball “out the back” from Thomas Weaver, dummied to his left and after pulling the ball back into his body beat the Knights five eight on the outside when he was about ten metres out from the line. As he approached the try line, Jaylan De Groot got down low to force his way over, getting the ball down one handed (right hand) under heavy pressure from two Knights defenders.

In many respects there were similarities in Jaylan De Groot’s three other tries in the match. On all three occasions, Jaylan De Groot was loitering behind the play the ball when the Northern Rivers Titans were bringing the ball of their own territory. For his first try of the three being discussed, Jaylan De Groot backed up a break from Bayley Cox to get the off load thirty metres out from the line, running over the top of the Knights fullback to score on the left side of the field.

Jaylan De Groot backed up a break from Titan Oskar Bryant for his third try of the match running forty metres untouched to score under the posts, to make it three tries in the first half. Jaylan De Groot’s four try of the match in the second half was a fifty two metre under the posts effort as once again he loomed up in support of a Northern Rivers Titans half break through the centre of the ruck.

Jaylan De Groot also started at fullback in Round Three against the Central Coast Roosters and started in the custodian role as well in Round Four, scoring a double as the Titans drew with the Greater Northern Tigers.

Jaylan De Groot’s first try against the Greater Northern Tigers was once again as a result of Jaylan De Groot backing up through the centre of the ruck. Daniel Butterini broke through the Tigers defence on the left side of the field and found Jaylan De Groot on the inside to score out wide. Impressively it was Jaylan De Groot who had thrown the pass to Butterini that had initially put the left centre outside of his direct opponent leading to the line break.

Jaylan De Groot was once again on hand after a Thomas Weaver break to beat the Greater Northern Tigers fullback to score his second try of the match.

In the final match before the Covid 19 shut down, being Round Five Jaylan De Groot also started at fullback against the North Coast Bulldogs, with the Northern Rivers Titans drawing the match to finish the abridged 2020 U18 Laurie Daley Cup competition undefeated.

When community rugby league restarted in July 2020 Jaylan De Groot continued playing for the Cudgen Hornets in the NRRRL competition, starting the season in the NRRRL U18 competition before progressing and making his NRRRL First Grade debut going on to play multiple matches on the wing and at fullback for the Hornets.

Jaylan De Groot played multiple matches for the Cudgen Hornets NRRRL First Grade side in 2020 both at fullback and on the right wing becoming an elusive and consistent long range try scorer from both positions.

Noted below are some of Jaylan De Groot’s 2020 NRRRL First Grade tries for the Cudgen Hornets in no specific Round order:

Playing on the right wing against the Bilambil Jets, Jaylan De Groot scored a fifty metre opportunist try. Facing an overlap, Jaylan De Groot came out of the line to put pressure on the Bilambil left centre who subsequently lost the ball as he tried to take the ball quickly and pass to his left to his unmarked winger. Jaylan De Groot scooped the ball up on the first bounce and was easily too fast for the cover defence to run away a dive over under the posts. The try perfectly highlighted Jaylan De Groot’s plus speed off the mark as well as over an extended distance.

Jaylan De Groot scored a further try against Bilambil when he was also playing on the right wing. The ball was spun out to his wing, but by the time that he had received it, Jaylan De Groot had no room to move down the wing. Jaylan De Groot cut back inside beating three Jets defenders with steps off both feet to eventually get the ball down five metres in from the right corner post.

Against Murwillumbah Jaylen De Groot, as he does exceptionally well was loitering directly behind the play the ball, when Cudgen made a break through the centre of the ruck, Jaylan De Groot loomed up in support to take the offload at full speed before rounding the fullback and as has become his custom dived over to score under the posts.

Jaylan De Groot’s aerial skills were on display in a match against the Bilambil Jets when playing at fullback, Jaylen De Groot charged through and took an attacking chip kick on the full on the left side of the field midway between the goal posts and corner post and was able to get the ball down before the Jets defence could react.

Jaylan De Groot also produced one memorable try assist in the 2020 NRRRL First Grade competition. Against Murwillumbah from the fullback position Jaylan De Groot chimed into the backline on the right side of the field and once through the initial defensive line threw what can only be described as outstanding no look pass to his right which found his centre on the chest and from there they were able to sprint away down the right touch line to score in the right centre. Jaylan De Groot’s pass was quite simply exquisite and a pass few could have thrown even in the NRL when going at full speed like Jaylan De Groot was at the time.

In 2020 Jaylen De Groot also played in a number of NRRRL U18 matches for Cudgen including starting on the left wing in the Hornets NRRRL U18 Grand Final victory, with Jaylan De Groot scoring a double in the often spiteful match after starting the match on the left wing.

Jaylan De Groot actually scored the first try of the 2020 NRRRL U18 Grand Final when a long cut out pass from Thomas Weaver found the Cudgen left centre who got the ball onto Jaylan De Groot who crossed out wide and had the foresight to bring the ball around closer the goal posts.

Jaylan De Groot’s second Grand Final try also came in the first half and was the third Cudgen Grand Final try. Jaylan De Groot was on the end of a long cut out pass from Thomas Weaver, receiving the ball about five metres out from the try line in acres of space and was able to bring the ball around an extra five metres from the left corner totally untouched before the Murwillumbah defence looked to cut him off from bringing the ball around any further.

Jaylan De Groot had also scored in the 2020 U18 NRRRL regular season on multiple occasions including scoring against the Bilambil Jets when he scored under the posts after backing up a long break by Cudgen front rower Parker Bryant who had drawn the fullback before offloading to his left to Jaylan De Groot.

In 2020 Jaylan De Groot was also a member of the highly successful PBC Open A Langer Cup school boy squad that won the Grand final against local rivals Keebra Park with Jaylan De Groot starting the Grand Final at fullback.

Jaylan De Groot had scored earlier in the Langer Cup qualifying rounds when he scored against Ipswich State High School. Starting the match at fullback Jaylan De Groot chimed into the PBC backline on the left side of the field receiving the ball from Thomas Weaver, Jaylan De Groot immediately burst through a gap between two Ipswich State High School defenders before beating the fullback with a left foot step and was able to bring the ball around to score under the posts as has become his trademark.

In 2019 Jaylan De Groot was part of the all-conquering U16 Northern Rivers Titans Andrew Johns Cup side that took all before them to go through the 2019 season undefeated, including their Grand Final victory over the Western Rams.

In Round One of the 2019 U16 Andrew Johns Cup competition Jaylan De Groot started at fullback for the Northern Rivers Titan against the Newcastle Knights, finishing the match with a try and a try assist.

Jaylan De Groot’s Round One try was a long range effort, when he received an offload from Bayley Cox to fly fifty five metres to score under the posts. In relation to his try assist, Jaylan De Groot broke the Newcastle line on the right, drawing the fullback and off-loading to his right to put his right centre over.

Round Two saw Jaylan De Groot once again start at fullback against the Parramatta Eels with Jaylan De Groot once against scoring a try and setting up another. Jaylan De Groot also produced a try saving tackle in the match when he held his ground with the giant Eels right centre charging straight at him. Jaylan De Groot was able to get underneath the ball and hold the Parramatta centre up over the line.

Jaylan De Groot scored under the posts in the match after rounding the Parramatta fullback after receiving a pass from Riley Lack who had broken the Parramatta line down the left side of the field. Jaylan De Groot showed quick hands for his try assist when he was able to keep a quick pass away to his right as the Parramatta left winger was coming in to cut off the ball. Jaylan De Groot hands were too quick however and his pass found his right winger who was able to subsequently score in the right corner.

In Round Three against the North Coast Jaylan De Groot, who as usual started the match at fullback was one of the Northern Rivers Titans try scorers once again when he scored under the posts from ten metres out.

Jaylan De Groot was once against at fullback in Round Four against the Greater Northern Tigers and produced an outstanding line break through the centre of the Tigers ruck before drawing the fullback and passing to his right to send Oskar Bryant over to score.

After also starting at fullback in Round Five, Jaylan De Groot also started at fullback in the Northern Rivers Titans semi-final match against the Penrith Panthers, once again scoring one try and also setting up another as the Titans progressed to the 2019 U16 Andrew Johns Cup Grand Final.

Jaylan De Groot scored in the right corner after receiving an off load from Oskar Bryant and his try assist came from a result of an outstanding piece of individual play. Jaylan De Groot, from his own territory, chipped over the Penrith defensive line and as the Panthers fullback was coming forward, Jaylan De Groot towed the ball forward off the ground from around forty metres out and weighted the second kick perfectly with the ball pulling up a metres into the in goal. Team mate Thomas Weaver won the race to the ball to dive on the ball adjacent to the right upright.

In the 2019 U16 Andrew Johns Cup Grand Final Jaylan De Groot started for the Northern Rivers Titans Grand Final winning side against the Western Rams and the young fullback with the Titans in front 12 – 0 produced an outstanding piece of play with ensure the Northern Rivers Titans won the match.

With the Western Rams on the attack, the Rams half back put in a short attacking kick on the right side of the field, Jaylan De Groot was on his try line and got down low to take the kick on the full, immediately sprinting away down the left side of the field. As he was being corralled thirty metres out from his own try line, Jaylan De Groot was able to find Thomas Weaver on his right, who ran seventy metres untouched to secure the match for the Titans.

Post the 2019 U16 Andrew Johns Cup, Jaylan De Groot played for the premiership winning Group 18 U16 Cudgen Hornets side, terrorising his Group 18 U16 opponents on numerous occasions over the course of the 2109 season.

Some of Jaylan De Groot’s 2019 Group 18 U16 highlights and noted below to assist in describing Jaylan De Groot’s playing style:

Against Murwillumbah Jaylan De Groot scored an outstanding long range individual try. Operating on the left Jaylan De Groot, put in a right foot chip kick after taking the ball close to the defensive line. Even though it appeared that the fullback may have had the ball covered, Jaylan De Groot kept the pressure on the fullback through his strong chase. A horror bounce saw the ball bounce away from the Murwillumbah fullback and as a result of his determination, Jaylan De Groot was on hand to retrieve the ball and score an outstanding individual try.

Also against Murwillumbah later in the season, Jaylan De Groot highlighted once again his backing up mentality when he backed up a break directly from a Cudgen penalty tap restart to score.

Against Byron Bay/Lennox Head, Jaylan De Groot proved that he could run good lines when he ran an inside shoulder line on the left side of the field from five metres out to easily slide through the defensive line.

Also against Byron Bay/Lennox Head. Jaylan De Groot showcased his speed when after following through a Cudgen break, he outpaced the cover defence to score after the Hornets player who had made the break put in a kick over the top of the oncoming fullback.

Jaylan De Groot’s ability to be in the right place at the right time were on display against South Tweed when he scored a sixty metre try under the posts after he backed up a Thomas Weaver break to receive the ball from his left when Thomas Weaver drew the Bears fullback.

In wet conditions against South Tweed later in the season in wet and slippery conditions, Jaylen De Groot scored what on first viewing may have seemed to be a reasonably easy try but the amount of water on the field at the time meant that the try was actually quite impressive. Jaylen De Groot got down low and fielded a grubber kick directed to the left corner, once he had taken possession, Jaylen De Groot eluded two defenders with deft and sure footwork to dive over three metres in from the left corner post.

The 2019 Group 18 U16 season also saw Jaylan De Groot heavily involved in tries for others but one try assist in particular stood out. Operating on the left side of the field, Jaylan De Groot backed up a Cudgen break down the left touch line. Jaylen De Groot received the pass inside approximately forty five metres out from the Murwillumbah try line and with cover defence converging from a number of angles, put in an ideally weighted right foot kick for Cudgen to score in the left corner.

In 2019 Jaylan De Groot also attended PBC and played a number of matches on the left wing for PBC in the Langer Cup Open B competition, including in impressive performance, amongst others, in Toowoomba against St Mary’s College, including a clever intercept which he was able to return for a twenty metre gain.

When his team has the ball you will find Jaylan De Groot hovering just behind the play the ball, looking for the smallest of opportunities whether that be a set play when the ball is passed back inside to him from the fringe of the ruck so that Jaylan De Groot can exploit fatigued forwards or being on the spot if a team mate gets his hands free and can offload. Also by positioning himself shallow and directly behind the play the ball, Jaylan De Groot can back-up on the inside no matter which side of the field the ball is transferred to and a line break is made.

When he runs the ball, Jaylan De Groot is exceptionally quick and explosive, with above average l speed, both off the mark and when he gets into open space no one will catch him. Jaylan De Groot also can step off both feet exceptionally well and also has a great swerve whilst maintaining top speed. On occasions this season when he made a break, Jaylan De Groot’s support could not keep up and thus he used his incredible footwork and speed to beat the opposing fullback by himself normally utilising a step or a swerve.

A review of Jaylan De Groot’s speed attribute is interesting, Jaylan De Groot has always been quick but in 2020 as he has grown taller and added muscle mass, his speed, both off the mark and at full pace has also trended upward. Prior to the 2020 season I would have argued that Jaylan De Groot’s speed would have been a touch above average but in 2020 I believe a fair assessment would be that Jaylan De Groot’s speed is verging on the plus category and can potentially kick up even a touch higher as he continues to develop in the Titans JTS program.

In addition Jaylan De Groot also has the ball playing skills to set up his support runners and get them lines to run into when defenders came out of the line to negate his time with the ball in hand. Impressively Jaylan De Groot is equally effective on both sides of the field, both in terms of chiming into the back line as well as playing the second five eight role, the ability to operate in those roles on both sides of the field is quite rare even at the NRL level.

In terms of running the ball back from kicks, his timing and anticipation means that Jaylan De Groot gets to a lot of balls on the full and makes a quick decision whether to run the ball flat out back into the oncoming defenders or look to create an opportunity by running across field, once again a rare attribute in the modern game. Regardless Jaylan De Groot is an absolute handful to tackle with his speed and evasion skills.

Defensively in the fullback position if an attacker runs directly at him, Jaylan De Groot will come forward to cut down the time the attacker has to make a decision and he will hit very hard and does not fall for a dummy in those situations.

Jaylan De Groot employs his speed to get up quickly on his opposite number to prevent then building their momentum in their run and even though he was nowhere near the biggest fullback running around will put his body in front of opposing attackers and defend with tenacity.

An impressive attribute that Jaylan De Groot does have is ability to force attackers who are in open space to try to beat him down the side line. Jaylan De Groot will stay inside the attacker and force him in the required direction and then use his timing, closing speed and anticipation to make the tackle, usually forcing the attacker into touch.

Jaylan De Groot in spending the current off-season training with the Titans NRL squad as well as with the Titans Rookie Squad. Jaylen De Groot will no doubt start the 2022 season as part of the Tweed Heads Seagulls Hastings Deering’s Colts squad and is also Colts eligible in 2023. It is also not out of the realms of possibility that Jaylan De Groot will break into the Seagulls Queensland Cup side sooner rather than later in 2022.

Jaylan De Groot has been primarily a fullback for the Cudgen Hornets, the Northern Rivers Titans and Tweed Heads Seagulls in both the MM Cup and Hastings Deering’s Colts competition over the last couple of seasons but spent time on the wing for the Cudgen NRRRL First Grade side in 2020 and also for the 2021 PBC Langer Cup Open A side, but with his ability to pop up at the right time and place and his ability to slice through the defensive line or set up his support runners, I believe that Jaylan De Groot will be given every chance to develop into a talented fullback option with definite NRL (or higher) potential.

Jaylan De Groot could certainly slide over to the wing if necessary and play very well in that position but with his performances over the last two seasons in Titans, club, school boy and representative competitions at fullback, consideration of that particular move seems increasingly unlikely, in the short to medium term at least.

Jaylan De Groot has a touch of Parramatta Eels fullback and New South Wales State of Origin fullback or centre Clint Gutherson in his game from the perspective of his ability to slice through a defensive line, always loitering behind the play the ball and supporting through the centre of the ruck and a fearless approach to fielding kicks and defending as well as running the ball back into the defensive line in relation to kick returns.

Like Gutherson does for Parramatta, Jaylan De Groot is always in and around the play the ball when his team has the ball, whether they are attacking or bringing the ball out of their own territory and seemingly is always in the right place at the right time to exploit even the smallest attacking opportunity through the centre of the ruck.

Jaylan De Groot is just one of those players who may not be the biggest or strongest or fastest but is certainly one of the smartest and just intuitively knows where to be and what to do when the ball comes his way. Uncanny is the perfect adjective to try to describe how Jaylan De Groot is always in the right place at the right time, all of the time no matter what the situation.

[mdrew]

Keano Kini. The dynamic fullback, five eight or half is a Titans contracted youngster originally from Auckland New Zealand who started in the halves for the Titans U16 side that played a U16 Newcastle Knights Harold Matthews squad in Coffs Harbour in January 2020. In the match Keano Kini operated on the right side of the field with fellow New Zealander and halves partner Levon Pure on the left.

Keano Kini was acknowledged for his performance by former Titans JTS Co-ordinator Matt Srama in his review of the match in a video on the Titans Official Site after the match especially taking into account that Keano Kini had only two or three field sessions with the rest of the team prior to the match.

In mid-December 2021 Keano Kini was one of the Titans JTS Program players that took part in a joint training session with the Titans NRL squad.

In early November 2021 Keano Kini was named in the powerful 2022 Tweed Heads Seagulls MM Cup squad.

In January 2021 Keano Kini started at fullback for the Titans U17 side in their annual match at Coffs Harbour against the Newcastle Knights U17’s and impressed in the deserved 32 – 20 Titans victory including scoring a special solo try in the second half which would not have been out of place in a State of Origin match.

As noted above, Keano Kini’s second half try was an absolutely special one. Keano Kini’s try started to the left of the play the ball with Keano Kini receiving the ball from the dummy half. Keano Kini immediately stepped off his left to beat the first (of many) Knights defenders and then cut back to his right across the face of the Newcastle defensive line, brushing past a couple of outstretched arms. As a Knights defender came out of the line, Keano Kini spun 360 degrees clockwise to generate a gap in the defensive line, ten metres out and then exploded through the gap forcing himself and the ball over the try line with three defenders still hanging off him five metres in from the right goal post.

Keano Kini also had an early second half try assist in the match when he put Seth Nikotemo into a gap to score from six metres away. In the second half Keano Kini moved up from fullback to spend time in the halves for the Titans with Blake Forder moving from the wing to fullback.

Keano Kini stamped his mark on the match in just the second minute. After the first five tackles of the match, Newcastle put in a clearing kick which Keano Kini took on the full over his left shoulder. Keano Kini immediately assessed the situation and seeing that the Knights had a shortened defensive line on the right side of their kick chase, Keano Kini exploded to his left, getting on the outside of the final Knights defender on the right of their defensive line, surging forty metres down the left touch line before eventually being corralled. The Titans scored the first try of the match two plays later, with the try being directly attributable to Keano Kini’s line break.

Wonderful stepping by Keano Kini was a key determinant in Keano Kini’s second half try, but the Knights should have known what was coming after getting a taste of his stepping ability when Keano Kini restarted play from a tap restart in the eighth minute of the first half after a Knights long kick went dead in-goal. Keano Kini took the tap from the twenty metre mark running to his left before producing a jump step off his right foot. On that occasion the Knights defence prevented a line break, in the second half they were not so lucky.

In June 2021 Keano Kini started at five eight for a Titans U17 side that played a Titans Northern Rivers U18 squad at Cbus Stadium as a curtain raiser to the Titans Round Fourteen NRL match against the Sydney Roosters.

The match saw Keano Kini dominate for long stretches including late in the second half when he scored in the left corner after a long Matthew Barrow break. In that period, Keano Kini also had a try assist when after he engaged the defensive line he got a great one arm off-load away to put William Semu into space to score untouched from long range.

Keano Kini also recorded a line break assist in the second half with a smart pass to hie left putting Matthew Barrow away for a fifty metre run down the left touchline.

Keano Kini was no less impressive in the first half, scoring one try and setting up another. Keano Kini scored when he backed up a long break from Arama Hau, receiving an off-load from his right to race forty five metres untouched to score.

Keano Kini’s try assist came whilst he was operating on the left side of the field. Keano Kini skipped on the outside of two Northern Rivers defenders on two occasions from twenty five metres out before drawing a third defender and offloading to William Semu who charged twenty metres to score near the left corner.

It was great to see in October 2020 Keano Kini named in the 2021 Tweed Heads Seagulls MM Cup squad.

Keano Kini started from the bench for the Tweed Heads Seagulls MM Cup side in their first 2021 trial which was against the Easts Tigers at Langland’s Park and was one of the Seagulls best in their 28 – 12 first up victory.

In Tweed Heads second 2021 MM Cup trial against Burleigh that Tweed Heads comprehensively won, Keano Kini played the first half at fullback and then came back on late in the match to line up at fullback once again and scoring late in the match.

Keano Kini’s late second half try was a typical fullbacks opportunist try when after loitering behind the play the ball Keano Kini loomed up on the left of Ryan Foran. Ryan Foran steamed onto the ball forty eight metres out from the line, utilising a slight step off his left foot to break through the Burleigh defensive line and then Ryan Foran positioned his support in Keano Kini perfectly to draw the fullback and pass to his left for Kini to sprint twenty five metres to put the ball down under the posts.

Keano Kini was in the action early in the match setting up a try down the left side of the field for Tweed Heads left second rower Jayden Wright, Keano Kini took the pass from the dummy half twenty metres out down a wide blind side. Keano Kini ran at the line with the ball in both hands before subtly adjusting his running line to his left and producing a good short ball to the left of his body to put Jayden Wright into a gap and from there the second rower was able to power over and score five metres in from the left corner post.

Keano Kini also produced an outstanding run in the first half, when from a Seagulls scrum win, Keano Kini ran to the left of the field, rounding three defenders and making twenty metres downfield but just as he was about to breakaway, Keano Kini was dragged down from behind. Keano Kini however won a penalty for his team after the run when the Burleigh defence would not allow him to get to his feet and execute a quick play the ball.

Keano Kini also started from the bench in Tweed Heads final 2021 MM Cup final against the Souths Logan Magpies at Logan, scoring early in the second quarter. Keano Kini came onto the left wing in the second quarter before playing fullback in the second half.

Keano Kini’s try came in the 25th minute of the match, he had stayed on the left touchline as the ball was being thrown out in his direction. Keano Kini received the ball from Kaleb Ngamanu who threw a long pass to his left to Keano Kini. Three Souths Logan defenders were coming across in cover defence, but at the last moment Keano Kini who had presented that he was going for the left corner, stepped back inside off his left, resulting in all three defenders sailing past. Keano Kini was then able to dive over to score five metres in from the left corner post.

Keano Kini’s first run of the match came off a Tweed Heads scrum win. Keano Kini had moved in from his left wing to be the first receiver to the left of the scrum, darting past two defenders whilst making fifteen valuable metres from deep in his own half.

Keano Kini produced another superb second quarter run and once again it was as first receiver from a scrum with a Tweed Heads feed ten metres from their own line. Keano Kini received the ball just five metres out from his own line and literally ran around the three Souths Logan right side defenders before beating one when he stepped back inside off his left. Keano Kini burst through four attempted arm tackles on defenders who were trying to keep up with his directional changes before he was hit high from behind with the Souths Logan defender being sin binned and put on report for the high hit. Keano Kini’s exceptional run had brought the ball an additional thirty metres away from the Tweed heads Seagulls line.

Keano Kini continued his dominant performance in the second minute of the third quarter with an outstanding offload and line break assist. After moving to fullback, Keano Kini chimed into the Tweed Heads backline on the left side of the field, going deep into the line before producing an outstanding right arm around the corner pass to put Ryan Foran into space.

Keano Kini continued his exceptional match later in the third quarter with yet another impressive run. Souths Logan received a penalty and kicked for touch but the Tweed Heads left winger was able to bat the ball back into the field of play. Keano Kini retrieved the ball inside his own twenty, immediately racing to his right at a 60 degree angle. As he approached the Souths Logan defensive line, Keano Kini stepped subtly off his left twice but bumping off one defender who tried to take him chest high before cutting back to his left to make an additional ten metres post contact. In total from when he retrieved the ball, Keano Kini make forty metres.

Keano Kini produced a further outstanding run a couple of minutes later from the second hit-up after Billy Mozer’s try. Taking a hit-up to the left of the play the ball, Keano Kini was initially hit behind the advantage line, but after breaking that tackle, he exploded down field to make ten metres.

A third impressive run in the third quarter came in the 8th minute of the quarter when Keano Kini looped around to a short left blind side from a Titans scrum win. Thomas Weaver received the ball from Blake Mozer who had packed in at lock and held the ball up as Riley Lack ran a decoy line, giving the ball to Keano Kini who made twenty metres downfield utilising his exceptional footwork to beat multiple tackles.

Just two minutes later, Keano Kini again broke through the Souths Logan defensive line after being the first receiver of a Titans scrum win. Keano Kini ran to the right after receiving the ball from the back of the scrum, stepping off his left to beat one defender, making fifteen metres downfield before eventually being brought down.

Keano Kini also showcased his outstanding top end speed in the second quarter. Souths Logan Magpies captain and five eight Ezra Mam broke through the Tweed Heads right sided defence and chipped over the fullback with a foot race ensuing. Keano Kini started ten metres behind Mam and on the opposite side of the field but within twenty five metres Keano Kini had caught and passed Mam in the race to the ball that had pulled up in the in-goal, ultimately knocking the ball dead.

Keano Kini started Round One of the 2021 MM Cup competition on the left wing before spending a significant portion of the second half at fullback as Tweed Heads took on the Ipswich Jets at home and set up the Seagulls first try of the match.

Thomas Weaver took the ball down a shortish left blindside and throwing a long cut out pass when he was forty eight metres out to his left to put Keano Kini away down the left touch line. Keano Kini flew down the left touchline, drawing the fullback and passing back to his left looking for Jaylan De Groot who was backing up on the inside. The Ipswich Jets right winger got his hand in the way to knock the ball towards the Seagulls try line with Jaylan De Groot retrieving the ball to run ten metres to score nine metres from the left corner post to cross for the Seagulls first try of the match.

One of the things that has stood out in his time in Australia has been Keano Kini’s willingness to bring the ball out of his own territory and against Ipswich that was highlighted in the 16th minute when he made elven metres from a hit-up bringing the ball out of his own twenty metre area.

In the second half with more room to move, Keano Kini had some good moments including in the 54th minute when he tracked back to retrieve the ball essentially on his own line, utilising his outstanding right foot step, Keano Kini easily beat the first defender down the field.

Keano Kini also started on the left wing in Round Two against the Souths Logan Magpies and like he did in Round One Keano Kini moved to fullback in the second half with Keano Kini scoring in just the second minute of the match in their 32 – 24 victory.

Keano Kini scored when he flew down the left touch line to dive over in the left corner, putting the ball down with his outstretched right arm after getting a gem of a pass from Jaylan De Groot.

Keano Kini also had a line break assist in just the 7th minute of the match. As he has all season, Keano Kini was the Seagulls first receiver from scrums, normally on the left side of the field. After receiving the ball, Keano Kini cut to his outside forcing the defender on his left to commit to the tackle and after driving into the line and drawing two defenders, Keano Kini threw a great ball to his left to put Kaleb Ngamanu into space down the left touchline.

Keano Kini’s speed and willingness to take the ball through the centre of the ruck was showcased once again in the 45th minute when he charged onto the ball just inside Souths Logan’s territory to the right of the play the ball. Keano Kini broke two tackles, making twelve metres before bouncing to his feet to generate a quick play the ball with Jaylan De Groot scoring due to the Souths Logan defence still back peddling from Keano Kini’s effort.

Once again in the 48th minute, Keano Kini took pressure off his forward pack when he took the second hit from the kick-off from Jaylan De Groot’s try, with Keano Kini breaking two tackles to get the ball out past the thirty metre line and then was awarded a penalty when the Souths Logan defence would not allow him to get to his feet for a quick play the ball.

Keano Kini continued his exceptional display in the 49th minute when he produced another line break when they got on the outside of his direct opponent on the left, breaking through the defensive line but unfortunately his pass back on the inside went to ground with a try potentially in the offing.

Keano Kini was literally everywhere and bobbed up once again in the 57th minute with yet another hit-up to the left of the play the ball, once again bring the ball out of his own territory, getting the ball up to the forty metre area.

Even with the game winding down and the Seagulls guaranteed the win, Keano Kini could not be kept out of the match. From a Tweed Heads scrum win on their own twenty, Keano Kini received the ball to the left of the scrum and literally ran around the Souths Logan right side defence to run twenty five metres downfield before cutting inside near the halfway mark to put a stamp on yet another impressive dare I say it, dominate performance.

Keano Kini once again started on the left wing in the Round Three Gold Coast derby against the Burleigh Bears scoring once again in the Seagulls victory.

As has become the norm, Keano Kini and Jaylen De Groot swapped positions on a number of occasions over the course of the match.

Keano Kini’s try came towards the end of the first half when he followed through a great break by Bailey Martin who off-loaded to his right to find Keano Kini in open space to run twenty metres untouched to score to the left of the uprights and bring the ball around from the left corner under no pressure.

Keano Kini had to be on his game in just the 9th minute of the match when Burleigh right second rower Seth Nikotemo put in a surprise chip ten metres out from the line. Keano Kini had to come off his left wing and dive forward to take the ball on the full less than a minute away from the try line. Keano Kini was then able to stay low to prevent being forced back into the in-goal.

The second half saw Keano Kini break through the Burleigh defensive line seemingly at will with the first of those occasions coming in the 46th minute when Keano Kini darted out of dummy half to his left. As soon as he was clear of the ruck, Keano Kini stepped off his right to get through the line and get Tweed Heads into Burleigh’s territory with Keano Kini making eighteen metres from the run.

Keano Kini broke the Burleigh line once again in the 50th minute. After Burleigh kicked to their right, Jaylan De Groot received the ball on the left and threw a long pass to his right that found Keano Kini in acres of space. Keano Kini stepped off his right to easily break through a fractured Burleigh defensive line, making thirty five metres downfield before finally being held.

Then in the 55th minute Keano Kini made his third line break in just ten minutes when he ran out of dummy half to his left, breaking two tackles before being tackled on the Burleigh forty metre mark after a twenty one metre run.

Unfortunately Keano Kini was unable to finish the match due to a lower leg injury with that injury forcing Keano Kini to miss the remainder of the 2021 MM Cup season.

In the Queensland Rugby League 2021 MM Cup Player of the Year Award Keano Kini was awarded two votes.

In mid-February 2021 Keano Kini was named at fullback in the school boy Oceanic Opens side for the South Coast school boy QSSRL U18 trial against Broadwater. Following the final round of trials, Keano Kini was named at fullback in the 2021 South Coast U18 school boy QSSRL squad.

After missing the opening two rounds of the 2021 Langer Cup school boy competition, Keano Kini started Round Three for PBC in a Gold Coast derby against Coombabah State High School, putting in a Player of the Match performance in PBC’s come from behind victory. Keano Kini’s initial involvement in the match came in the 3rd minute with his first run when he took a hit-up off the dummy half to the left making twelve metres.

Keano Kini dominant performance included a 33rd minute try when he took possession as PBC spun the ball to their left with Keano Kini collecting a Thomas Weaver pass on the bounce and exploding to his left through a gap and brought the ball around to put it down under the posts completely untouched.

Keano Kini almost scored a second try in the final minute of the match when from fifteen metres out on the left side of the field, Keano Kini stepped off his left foot to beat two defenders before charging at the line, initially it appeared that he got the ball down, but the referee adjudged that Keano Kini lost the ball just short of the line.

In addition to his try, Keano Kini made multiple line breaks with the first coming in the 8th minute with a line break after taking the kick-off after PBC’s opening try, making twenty metres before being brought to ground.

In the 18th minute Keano Kini made another line break when he took a Coombabah SHS clearing kick on the full and burst thirty metres downfield breaking three tackles. Keano Kini broke the Coombabah SHS line yet again in the 44th minute with the line break coming from what appeared at the start to be a regulation hit-up to the left of the play the ball thirty metres out from his own line. As he approached the defensive line, Keano Kini produced a devastating left foot step to slice through the line and then bamboozled the fullback with two left foot steps. Only after he got around the fullback and beat two more tackles was Keano Kini finally brought to ground.

Keano Kini continued at fullback for the Round Four blockbuster against Marsden State High School and was his usual elusive self including a great effort in the 9th minute when he retrieved a short Marsden SHS grubber kick into the in-goal and even with Marsden chasers everywhere, Keano Kini was able to step around a number of defenders to get the ball out of his own in-goal.

Keano Kini also produced an outstanding piece of play after the final siren. With Marsden SHS down by six as the final siren sounded, from fifteen metres from their own line Marsden kicked towards William Semu who charged onto the ball and flew down the left touchline and just as he looked as if he had beaten Keano Kini was able to produce a great desperate tackle to bring William Semu down just short of the line and save the match for PBC.

Keano Kini continued at fullback for the much anticipated Round Six local derby against Keebra park State High School and recorded a 53rd minute try assist when he ran at the line on the left side of the field, digging deep into the line before off-loading to his left to put his winger over in the left corner.

Keano Kini overall had a strong match including an impressive first kick return in just the second minute of the match when he was able to get the ball back to the halfway mark after taking receipt of the ball deep inside his own twenty metre area.

Keano Kini also started at fullback in Round Six against Mabel Park State High School and once again his ability to run parallel to the defensive line before exploding through the smallest of gaps was highlighted on numerous occasions including in the 55th minute when he exploded through a gap to comfortably break through the Mabel Park SHS defensive line, making thirty five metres for his progress was halted.

Keano Kini also scored for PBC in their 22 – 4 victory when in the 48th minute with the Mabel Park SHS defence back peddling Keano Kini ran the ball down a short left blindside, initially receiving the ball eighteen metres out before cutting off the left foot and then accelerating forward before diving over ten metres in from the left corner post between two defenders.

After the competition was suspended for a number of weeks due to a Covid 19 lock down, Keano Kini was named at fullback for PBC State High School in their semi-final against Keebra Park State High School with Keano Kini scoring the match sealing try in the 49th minute when after receiving the ball on the left side of the field around twenty metres out, Keano Kini dummied to his left before slicing through the Keebra Park defensive line to get the ball down ten metres from the left upright.

Keano Kini’s first of multiple outstanding contributions for PBC came in just the 2nd minute when Keano Kini made twelve metres to get to ten metres out after joining the backline on the left side of the field. Keano Kini then almost set up PBC’s opening try of the match with a great cut put pass to the left but the pass was desperately knocked down by the Keebra Park right winger.

Keano Kini then produced a great kick return in the 5th minute, bringing the ball back and running to his left before straightening up and taking the line on. Keano Kini was hit high in the subsequent tackle and was awarded a deserved penalty.

Keano Kini also recorded a line break assist in the match in the 19th minute when after receiving the ball, Keano Kini cut back to his left before straightening up and getting halfway through the line before throwing a great right arm around the corner pass to put Bailey Martin away down the left channel on a fifteen metre run.

Keano Kini made a line break of his own in the 18th minute with a strong run to his right, making fifteen metres from the second hit-up off the kick off from Jett Forbes first half intercept try.

Keano Kini continued his impressive ball running in the 57th minute with a strong run and right arm flick off-load to Brock Priestley to get the ball well into Keebra Park territory.

Keano Kini was also outstanding defensively in the match including a great one on one tackle on a rampaging Arama Hau in the 26th minute after the Keebra Park lock had broken through the heart of the PBC SHS defensive line.

Also on three occasions Keano Kini was able to hold up Keebra Park attackers over the line. The first of those occasions came in the 12th minute when he along with Ryan Foran and Thomas Weaver held up one of the Keebra Park front rowers over the try line.

In the 14th minute, Keano Kini along with Jayden Wright, Michael Roberts and Oskar Bryant held up Blake Mozer over the line and then in the 25th minute, Keano Kini, Michael Roberts, Brock Priestley and Bailey Martin held up Aram Hau over the line directly under the posts.

In the 2021 Langer Cup Grand Final against Marsden State High School, Keano Kini was named to start at fullback row for PBC and was his usual elusive self in the match including a 20th minute kick return of thirty metres. Keano Kini ran to his right after taking possession of the ball and getting between two defenders making the thirty metres before off-loading to Deine Mariner who was able to make thirty metre more.

Post the 2021 Langer Cup Grand Final, Keano Kini was named the joint Justin Hodges Medal winner for the most outstanding player in the 2021 Langer Cup competition. Keano Kini was also named at fullback in the Courier Mail 2021 Langer Cup Team of the Year.

Keano Kini was then named at fullback for PBC in the Queensland Open School Boys Final (Phil Hall Cup) against St Brendan’s College Yeppoon with Keano Kini scoring a double in PBC’s big 62 – 0 win.

Keano Kini’s opening try of the Grand Final came in just the 3rd minute of the match when Keano Kini received the ball on the left side of the field. When he was ten metres out, Keano Kini dummied to his left and then stepped off his left foot to get through the St Brendon’s initial defensive line before crashing over ten metres in from the left corner post.

Keano Kini scored his second try of the Grand Final in the 40th minute and it was the try of the match. St Brendan’s kicked downfield from inside their own territory with Keano Kini moving forward to take the ball on the move thirty metres from his own line. Keano Kini then split the St Brendan’s line and from there it was shut the gate with Keano Kini easily outpacing the cover defence to score near the right corner.

Keano Kini came oh so close to splitting the St Brendan’s defensive line in the 19th minute when he collected a St Brandan’s attacking kick just ten metres from his own line and burst downfield, getting over the twenty metre line before just being grabbed by his legs from behind. With the St Brendan’s defence still in disarray, the St Brendan’s defender was forced to hold Keano Kini down and concede a penalty.

At the end of the 2021 season, Keano Kini was named at No. 7 in the Courier Mail Top 60 school boys from the GPS Rugby, AIC Rugby and Langer Cup competitions.

In March 2020 Keano Kini was selected to captain the under 16 NZtag Black team that was due to compete in the 2020 Trans-Tasman Series however that competition was postponed as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic. Early 2020 also saw Keano Kini named in the initial New Zealand rugby league U16 representative squad.

Keano Kini was not able to play much rugby league in 2020 but was able to play First XV school boy rugby in New Zealand for Rosmini College, not bad at all for a 16 year old.

Keano Kini started the 2020 school boy rugby year at fullback (N0. 15) for Rosmini College in their pre-season match against Rangitoto Collage, and when he season proper started all six of Rosmini College's First XV matches at fullback, finishing second in the competition with five wins and just one loss.

Keano Kini started against Kaipara High School (Round One 59 - 0 win), Westlake Boys High School (Round Two 24 - 19 loss), TGS (Round Three 31 - 5 win), Massey High School (Round Four 14 - 0), Orewa College (Round Five 48 - 5 win) and Whangarei Boys High (Round Six 43 - 10 win).

Post the school boy First XV competition, Keano Kini was selected for the New Zealand Rugby Blues U18 training squad.

In October 2020 Keano Kini played for Kotahitanga in the 2020 New Zealand Maori tournament and post the competition of the tournament was named at fullback in the U17 All-tournament team.

Keano Kini started the Grand Final of the 2020 New Zealand Maori Tournament at fullback for Kotahitanga as they defeated Taranaki Whanau 36 – 12 with Keano Kini scoring a try and kicking two conversions in the victory. Keano Kini scored when he was operating on the right side of the field and chased through a chip kick, taking the ball on the full and rounding two defenders to score under the posts.

The NZ Maori U17 side featuring Keano Kini at fullback played a New Zealand Residents U16 team on 24 October 2020 at Rotorua International Stadium with New Zealand Maori going down 46 – 6.

In 2019 Keano Kini played for Marist Saints in the Auckland U16 Open Rugby League competition even though he was impressively still U15 eligible. To be fair Keano Kini did not just play in the Auckland U16 competition, he absolutely dominated it, finishing at or near the top of the competition in the try scoring, goal kicking and overall points scoring categories.

Keano Kini moved to the Marist Saints from the Northcote Tigers where he had previously played his entire junior rugby league with before the 2019 season. Keano Kini currently attends Auckland’s Rosmini College where amongst other sporting pursuits Keano Kini played rugby, including sevens in Year Seven.

In the 2019 Auckland U16 Open competition, even though he was still U15 eligible Keano Kini had some outstanding matches including scoring twenty eight points from three tries and kicking eight goals against Mangere East Hawks in Round One and eighteen points from two tries and five goals against the Te Atatu Roosters in Round Two.

Being Marist Saints primary goal kicker meant that Keano Kini was one of the Auckland U16 Open competitions leading point’s scorers over the course of the 2019 season and try scorers for that matter.
Keano Kini started at half for Marist Saints in their 24- 12 semi-final win over the Waitemta Seagulls to progress to the 2019 Auckland U16 Open Grand Final.

In the 2019 Auckland U16 Open Grand Final Keano Kini started at half for Marist Saints against the Pakuranga Kingz with Marist Saints coming away with a 22 – 8 victory, with Keano Kini kicking three conversions from four attempts with his only miss being his first attempt of the Grand Final from wide out to the right of the uprights.

Keano Kini also set up Marist Saints first try of the Grand Final. Early in the first half, Keano Kini, was operating on the right side of the field two off the ruck. After receiving the ball is space, Keano Kini ran at the line with the ball out in front of his body in two hands, accelerating as he went. Impressively Keano Kini ran at the gap between two defenders, drawing both before popping a great short ball to his right for his fullback to surge over.

Also in 2019 Keano Kini started at half and kicked a conversion for the Auckland U16 side in their NRL curtain raiser in May 2019 against an U16 Future Warriors side at Mt Smart Stadium.

Keano Kini was part of the Marist Saints side that toured Australian in July 2019 playing a number of matches including a match on the Gold Coast against a Keebra Park select side in prefect conditions on the Gold Coast at Keebra Park’s school campus. In that match Keano Kini kicked five conversions.

Keano Kini also started at half in another tour match against the Mudgeeraba Redbacks with Keano Kini kicking six goals as Marist Saints defeated the Redbacks 48 – 0, with Keano Kini also recording a try assist, when operating on the right of the field, he held the ball up beautifully to put the Marist Saints right centre away on a twenty metre run to score.

To cap off an outstanding 2019, Keano Kini was selected in the New Zealand U16 side that played a TAO Samoa U16 side in Auckland in October. Keano Kini played the entire match at half for New Zealand and converted their final try with six minutes to go from directly in front as his New Zealand side went down 26 – 20.

Even though he played the 2019 season in the Auckland Rugby League U16 competition and represented New Zealand at the U16 level, Keano Kini was still U15 eligible in 2019 and represented the Akarana Falcons in that age group in the 2019 New Zealand U15 National Youth Tournament, an impressive achievement.

On Day One of the Tournament Keano Kini started at half and scored for the Akarana Falcons as they defeated the Wellington Orca’s 40 – 10. On Day Two Keano Kini once again started at half back as his Akarana Falcons side won 12 – 0 against the South Island Scorpions to be unbeaten after two matches.

On Day Three Keano Kini had a huge match scoring a double and kicking four goals as the Akarana Falcons defeated the Northern Swords 48 – 4. In the Akarana Falcons semi-final clash against Wai Coa-Bay Keano Kini was once again at half and scored a double as the Akarana Falcons progressed to the Tournament final on the back of a 32 – 8 win.

In the New Zealand U15 National Youth Cup Final against the Manakua Stingrays Keano Kini led his Akarana Falcons side from half back to the New Zealand U15 National Youth Title on the back of a 18 -6 win.

At the conclusion of the Championship Final, Keano Kini was named the New Zealand U15 National Youth Tournament Player of the Tournament and was also named at half in the U15 All-Tournament Team to cap an outstanding week for the budding Titans super star.

In 2018 Keano Kini represented the Akarana Falcons at the New Zealand U15 National Youth Tournament including kicking four conversions on Day One against the exceptionally named Wellington Orca’s.

Rugby League recognition is not new to Keano Kini who in 2016 was named MVP of the U13 2016 ARL Jets camp, also making the merit squad from the camp and playing for the Auckland U13 side.

2016 also saw Keano Kini named MVP of the Auckland Rugby League Regional Representative season when Keano Kini played in the U13 competition.

Incredibly Keano Kini attended a Titans meet and great session in 2014 at the home of the Northcote Tigers. Obviously the Titans players that were there made a very positive impression that day on Keano Kini.

In addition to also dabbling in rugby Keano Kini is also an outstanding athlete being named U13 Auckland Athlete of the year in 2016 for his exploits in other sports such as tennis and athletics amongst others.

Keano Kini continues to have an outstanding athletes career with Rosmini College. In 2019 Keano Kini competed in the Auckland North Zone Athletics Championships, running in the 100 metre and 200 metre events.

In the 100 metres, Keano Kini finished third in the final running 11.99 seconds into a head wind after running 11.88 seconds in the preliminaries. Keano Kini also finished second in the 200 metre final running 24.26 seconds improving the time that he ran in the preliminaries which was 24.35 seconds.

Keano Kini also competed for Rosmini College in the 2018 Auckland North Zone Athletics Championships, representing his school in long jump and the 100 metre and 200 metre spring events.

In the long jump Keano Kini finished second with a jump of 5.28 metres. In the 100 metres sprint Keano Kini finished sixth in the final running 11.65 seconds after running 12.50 in the preliminary round. In the 200 metre final Keano Kini finished second running 25.69 seconds after improving from running 25.95 seconds in the preliminary round.

In 2016 Keano Kini had an outstanding year from an athletics perspective including being awarded an Integrated Schools Sporting Award for winning a gold, silver and bronze medal at the Colgate Games and two gold medals at the Trans-Tasman Athletics Championships.

In 2016 Keano Kini was named the Rosmini College Intermediate Athlete of the Year after winning the long jump, 100 metres and 200 metres sprint races at the school athletics championships. Keano Kini jumped 5.87 metres to win the long jump, ran 11.65 seconds to win the 100 metres and 23.7 seconds to win the 200 metre sprint.

To round off an impressive 2016 Keano Kini represented Rosmini College in basketball at the NZCT AIMS Games, ultimately being named in the boys merit side after leading Rosmini College to a second place finish.

Even though Keano Kini has plus acceleration off the mark and above average top speed, his primary focus on a football field is to direct his side around the field, putting his side where they need to be to maintain pressure on the opposition.

Holding the ball out in front of his body in both hands enables Keano Kini to put doubt into the minds of the opposing defensive line and thus he can dummy and run if there is a gap in the defensive line or put his support runners into gaps or for that matter get the ball out to his back line as quickly as possible.

Getting the ball out to the back line quickly is no issue for Keano Kini as he has a very good long passing technique which delivers the ball quickly and accurately to the right place. Keano Kini’s decisive nature also means that when the ball needs to get out to his back line he will get it out there quickly to give his outside backs as much space as possible to work with prior to contact with the opposing defensive line.

In defence, due to his size Keano Kini is obviously not going to come up with the big hit but reads the play well and can more than hold his own when defending much bigger players and against players with similar size is very aggressive when finishing off his tackles and slowing the resultant play the ball down.

Keano Kini is also very vocal on the field always talking and encouraging his side and doing it in a positive way.

Keano Kini is also a very good goal kicker with both good range and accuracy and as a consequence I would suggest that he is likely to be his side’s primary goal kicker regardless of the level he progresses to into the future.

Keano Kini also has a very good short attacking kicking game with a positive being that he will go right to the line before dropping the ball to his foot, add to the fact that he regularly runs with the ball out in front of his body in both hands, he gives defensive lines a lot to consider, is Keano Kini going to kick, run or pass, a defensive line that anticipates incorrectly will be scrambling to recover before he makes them pay for their error in judgement.

Like with his goal kicking Keano Kini has a real opportunity to be his team’s primary tactical kicking option going forward.

In 2022 Keano Kini will line up for the second season in a row in the MM Cup competition for the Tweed Heads Seagulls and will also continue at PBC where he will be one of their key players as they look to replicate their 2021 Langer Cup success.

It would also not surprise at all if once his MM Cup and school boy commitments are completed in 2022 that Keano Kini will get an opportunity with the Tweed Heads Seagulls Hastings Deering’s Colts squad.

Keano Kini played half for the initial portion of his young career to date and there appeared nothing in the way that he played to indicate any necessity for that situation to change. I must note however that Keano Kini was more than impressive at fullback in school boy rugby in 2020 as well as for New Zealand Maori as well as for the Titans U17 side in their match against the Newcastle Knights in Coffs Harbour in January 2021. Of course Keano Kini also spent time at fullback in the 2021 MM Cup competition after starting the matches in the left wing.

My NRL player comparison for Keano Kini is fellow New Zealander and New Zealand Warriors an former Cronulla Sharks and New Zealand International Shaun Johnson as a comparison from a playing stand point. Like Shaun Johnson, Keano Kiri has a wicked side step and plus acceleration as well as the ability to lead his side around the field and put them where they need to be. Like Johnson, Keano Kini is also a solid (if not better) tactical and goal kicker and is more than good enough to be his team’s primary opinion in both of those kicking categories.

No one can predict the future but how Keano Kini’s game develops over the coming years will be something that I will be keeping a very close eye on especially in relation to his ball playing and game management skills which will be outstanding supplements to Keano Kiri’s already outstanding attacking skills.

[mdrew]

Josiah Pahulu. The powerful forward (he can play multiple positions in the forward pack, but mainly front row and lock) signed a new three year contract with the Titans in early October 2020 but then Josiah Pahulu had his contract upgraded in late November 2021 with his new contract taking in training with the Titans NRL squad.

Josiah Pahulu initially signed with the Titans in early 2019 after starring for one of the two Titans U15 Invitational sides that played a round robin series of matches at Mudgeeraba in February 2019. The other team in the round robin was a Western Mustangs representative side.

In mid-December Josiah Pahulu had the opportunity to train with the Titans NRL squad in a joint training session between the Titans NRL squad and the Titans JTS Program Squads where Josiah Pahulu spent a fair portion of the joint session working with David Fifita.

In late October 2021 Josiah Pahulu was named in the Ipswich Jets 2022 U18 MM Cup squad with Josiah Pahulu certain to be the corner stone of the Jets powerful forward pack.

In October 2021 Josiah Pahulu was named in the 2021 Queensland Samoa U18 representative side for the 2021 QPICC Cultural Carnival, starting all four of his matches at the Carnival at lock and captain, being Match One against Tonga, Match Two against PNG, Match Three against the Cook Islands and Match Four against Queensland Maori.

Josiah Pahulu scored twice at the Carnival being against the Cook Islands in Match Three and Queensland Maori in Match Four. Josiah Pahulu’s try against the Cook Islands was a typically powerful effort. In the 27th minute with Samoa on the attack Josiah Pahulu stationed himself directly behind the play the ball. After the dummy half picked up the ball, Josiah Pahulu ran to the right of the play the ball, receiving the ball five metres out. Near the line Josiah Pahulu stepped off his right foot to dive over on the right side of the field mid-way between the corner post and goal posts.

In January 2021 Josiah Pahulu started at right second row for the Titans U17 side in their annual match at Coffs Harbour against the Newcastle Knights with Josiah Pahulu producing a dominating performance in the impressive Titans 32 – 20 victory in both attack and defence. In a sign of the high regard that the Titans have in Josiah Pahulu, he was acting captain for periods of the match.

One tackle in particular stood out in the match, Newcastle were bringing the ball off their own try line when Josiah Pahulu moved up and got in and under the ribs of the ball runner with his left shoulder. Josiah Pahulu drove the Knights forward back three metres and put him on his back, taking all momentum out of the Knights set of six.

In early May 2021 a Titans U19 side travelled to North Queensland to play an U19 Cowboys selection in a curtain raiser to a Cowboys v Broncos NRL match with Josiah Pahulu starting the match on the bench for the Titans.

Then in June 2021 Josiah Pahulu started at lock for a Titans U17 JTS squad that played at Cbus Stadium against a Titans Northern Rivers U18 selection, with the match being played as a curtain raiser to the Titans Round Fourteen NRL match against the Sydney Roosters.

Josiah Pahulu commenced his 2021 MM Cup campaign for the Ipswich Jets starting at lock against the Western Mustangs and also started at lock in the Jets second MM Cup trial against the Easts Tigers.

In Round One of the 2021 MM Cup competition, Josiah Pahulu was named to start in the front row against the Tweed Heads Seagulls but ended up starting the match at lock and was in the action almost immediately when he made solid contact on fellow Titans contracted forward Ryan Foran who has making just the third hit-up of the match.

One of the best of Josiah Pahulu’s carriers with the ball came in the 10th minute of the match when he took the ball to the right of the dummy half and dragged defenders around ten metres before being stopped less than ten metres away from the try line.

As he was in the first half it did not take long for Josiah Pahulu to get involved in the second with a strong second hit-up of the second half.

Round Two against the Burleigh Bears saw Josiah Pahulu started at lock and a strong charge which made eleven metres into the Bears ten metre zone was a sign of things to come. Josiah Pahulu produced a further strong run in the 26th minute with a charge into Burleigh’s territory that accounted for fifteen metres.

Early in the second half Josiah Pahulu was everywhere for the Jets looking to get them back into the match, starting with a strong charge from just the second hit-up of the second half. A minute later Josiah Pahulu once again took the ball into the Burleigh defensive line, making ten metres to get the ball of the Ipswich twenty metre zone and then from a penalty restart made a further ten metres, then from the third tackle in that same set of six was yet another run of around ten metres.

Josiah Pahulu continued his strong second half performance in the 53rd minute with a powerful run that netted eighteen metres to get the bell within twelve metres of the Bears try line. Even with the match out of Ipswich’s reach, Josiah Pahulu continued to keep trying as was evidenced by a fifteen metre rumble through centre field in the 68th minute of the match.

Josiah Pahulu was named in the front row in Round Three against the Souths Logan Magpies and was one of the Jets best on the way to making 128 metres, with a fair percentage of those metres being post contact metres.

Josiah Pahulu also started in the front row in Round Four against the Tweed Heads Seagulls and was one of the best players on the field. Josiah Pahulu made an immediate impact in the match with a strong twelve metre run over the halfway mark in Ipswich’s first set of six in the match and continued on from there.

In just the 3rd minute of the match, Josiah Pahulu produced another strong charge of the ball down a short blindside on the left to bring the ball over the halfway mark, making twelve metres and then Josiah Pahulu made a further fifteen metres later in the same set of six tackles that took the Jets into their attacking twenty metre zone.

Even the incredibly hot conditions that the match was played in could not stop Josiah Pahulu as in the 9th minute, Josiah Pahulu once again ran the ball into the Tweed Heads defensive line, making a strong run to the twenty metre mark and was then awarded a penalty after the Tweed Heads defensive line refused to allow him to his feet to get a quick play the ball.

Then in the 15th minute, Josiah Pahulu made an impressive eighteen metre charge from an Ipswich penalty restart to get Ipswich to near their attacking twenty metre zone. Josiah Pahulu once again proved difficult to handle in the 26th minute making thirteen metres over the halfway and once again was awarded a penalty after the Seagulls defence laid all over him to prevent the quick play the ball.

After playing the entire thirty five minutes of the first half Josiah Pahulu was back into the action when he took the second hit-up of the second half to get the bell to the Ipswich thirty metre line.

Josiah Pahulu then produced his best run of the match in the 38th minute when he charged onto the ball near the half way mark, tearing through the centre of the Seagulls ruck and running over the Tweed Heads fullback before being dragged down from behind around ten metres out.

After that long line break Josiah Pahulu did not rest on his laurels and was back in the action in the 59th minute with a fifteen metre run to get the ball to the forty metre mark.

Defensively Josiah Pahulu was also exceptional against Tweed Heads producing a number of crunching tackles including in the 42nd minute on Tweed Heads forward Bailey Martin but it was a tackle in the 40th minute that really stood out for me. Coming out from their own territory, Ipswich turned the ball over with it being picked up by Seagulls winger Kruz Remine who darted away, somehow Josiah Pahulu willed himself to chase back and drag the Seagulls winger down from behind less than ten metres away from the try line even though the winger had a head start on Josiah Pahulu.

The match also showed that Josiah Pahulu does not just put his head down and run at the line. In the 67th minute, Josiah Pahulu received the ball on the left side of the field and charged at the line, but just before he was set to contact the defence, Josiah Pahulu propped and send a well weighted pass to his left to put Xavier Stowers into a big gap making ten more metres.

Josiah Pahulu also started in the front row in Round Five against the Burleigh Bears with for me Josiah Pahulu was one of the Jets best.

Josiah Pahulu got close to scoring a deserved try in the match but in the 9th minute, lost the ball over the line trying to get the ball to the ground and also in the 13th minute, Josiah Pahulu got within centremetres of the line after a twelve metre burst on the left side of the field.

In the 14th minute, Josiah Pahulu proved that he does not just run the ball in attacking situations when he made eleven metres from a hit-up getting the ball outside of his own twenty metre area.

Josiah Pahulu did not take much time at all to get involved in the match making thirteen metres from an Ipswich penalty restart to get within five metres of the try line. Josiah Pahulu made a further fourteen metres in the 5th minute when he took the second hit-up after Burleigh kicked off following Ipswich’s first try of the match.

Just two minutes later in the 7th minute, Josiah Pahulu once again ran at the Burleigh line from ten metres out from a Jets penalty restart and it took five Burleigh defenders to halt his progress perilously close to the try line.

In the 23rd minute, with Ipswich well on top, Josiah Pahulu ensured that the Jets started their set after a try on the front foot when he took the hit-up from the kick-off, making twelve metres to get the ball over his own twenty metre area.

Josiah Pahulu made his presence felt in defence when in the 23rd minute he smashed Burleigh left winger Shannon Donaldson with a big front on tackle knocking the winger who was making his MM Cup debut three metres backwards.

Josiah Pahulu was at it again in the 24th minute when he rocked Burleigh front rower VJ Semu who was returning a kick-off, knocking the ball loose in the process.

Josiah Pahulu was involved in an earth trembling collision when in the 58th minute he smashed into fellow Titan Arama Hau when he was returning a Burleigh kick-off with the contact stopping both players in their tracks, it was great to see and let’s call the outcome a draw!

Josiah Pahulu followed that heavy collision up in the 65th minute with a twelve metre charge that was the second run from a Burleigh kick-off with Josiah Pahulu once again getting the ball over his own thirty metre mark.

Round Six being the final regular season round of the 2021 MM Cup competition saw Josiah Pahulu named to start in the front row against the Souths Logan Magpies however he was a late scratching from the match.

At the 2021 Ipswich Jets MM Cup Presentation Night, Josiah Pahulu was deservedly named the 2021 Ipswich Jets Most Valuable Player.

Post the 2021 MM Cup competition, Josiah Pahulu played for the Springfield Panthers in the Ipswich Rugby League U17 Division One competition with his first appearance for the Panthers coming in Round Four when Josiah Pahulu started in the second row against Goonda Black.

Josiah Pahulu captained the Springfield Panthers side in Round Six against Brothers Ipswich, starting in the front row and scoring two tries in their impressive 36 – 8 victory.

Josiah Pahulu moved to lock in Round Seven against Brother Blue and scored the final try of the match in the Panthers victory.

Round Ten against Norths Blue saw, Josiah Pahulu moved to the second row for the Panthers with Josiah Pahulu scoring the Panthers opening try in their 24 – 14 victory. Josiah Pahulu then continued in the second row in Round Eleven against Goodna Black, scoring twice in the Panthers 26 – 8 victory.

Round Twelve against Redbank Plains Red saw Josiah Pahulu once again start in the second row.

Josiah Pahulu finished the abridged 2021 Ipswich U17 Division One regular season as the competitions second leading try scorer.

In the opening round of the Ipswich Rugby League U17 Division One Finals series, Josiah Pahulu started in the second row for the Springfield Panthers against North’s Blue.

2021 also saw Josiah Pahulu line up once again for Ipswich State High School in the South East Queensland School Boy Langer Cup Open A competition starting Round One at lock against PBC SHS.

Ipswich SHS had a tough first 2021 Langer Cup outing but Josiah Pahulu scored a deserved try in the 19th minute when he charged over from dummy half to his left from close range, rumbling over one PBC defender to get the ball down adjacent to the right upright.

Another one of Josiah Pahulu’s best moments of his match was Josiah Pahulu’s huge charge into the PBC line from the second half kick-off.

Josiah Pahulu also started at lock in Round Two against Marsden State High School and whilst his team were soundly beaten, Josiah Pahulu more than held his own against the giant Marsden SHS forward pack.

Josiah Pahulu continued at lock in Round Three against Keebra Park State High School taking the third hit-up of the match and then in the 11th minute, Josiah Pahulu made a hard eleven metres from an Ipswich SHS penalty restart from inside their own twenty metre area.

Josiah Pahulu then moved to the front row for Round Four against Coombabah State High School and continued in the front row in Round Five against Wavell State High School as well as in Round Six against St Mary’s College Toowoomba, a match that saw Josiah Pahulu once again dominate including a great charge and right arm off-load down the left side of the left that led directly to Ipswich State High School’s opening try of the match in their 36 – 6 victory.

After the competition was suspended for a number of weeks due to a Covid 19 lock down, Josiah Pahulu was named in the front row for Ipswich State High School in their semi-final against Marsden State High School with Josiah Pahulu twice taking a hit-up in Ipswich SHS’s first set of six in the match.

Then in the 41st minute, Josiah Pahulu made a great eighteen metre run, breaking three tackles along the way to get the ball into Marsden State High School territory.

Post the completion of the 2021 Langer Cup competition, Josiah Pahulu was named on the bench in the Courier Mail’s 2021 Langer Cup Team of the Season and in the Queensland Rugby League 2021 MM Cup Player of the Year Award Josiah Pahulu was awarded two votes.

Post the Langer Cup competition Josiah Pahulu was named in the front row in the 2021 Ipswich State High School Team of the Tear.

2021 also saw Josiah Pahulu represent Met West at the QSSRL U18 Championships, playing with distinction in the front row.

At the end of the 2021 season, Josiah Pahulu was named at No. 23 in the Courier Mail Top 60 school boys from the GPS Rugby, AIC Rugby and Langer Cup competitions.

In late August 2021, Josiah Pahulu was named in the Queensland City U17 squad for a two match series against a Queensland U17 Country squad with Josiah Pahulu starting the match from the bench coming on midway through the first half and making an immediate impact from a defensive perspective.

Playing twenty nine minutes Josiah Pahulu ran for fifty eight metres (twenty two post contact) and made fourteen tackles at a 93.33% tackling efficiency.

Josiah Pahulu started Round One of the 2020 Langer Cup school boy rugby league competition at lock against PBC and in Round Two against St Mary’s Toowoomba. Josiah Pahulu also started at lock and was the best player on the field in Round Three as Ipswich SHSH went down 22 – 16 against Keebra Park. Some of Josiah Pahulu’s defence was simply outstanding with his initial contact impressive as was his ball running including a couple of kick-off returns.

Josiah Pahulu started the Langer Cup semi-final against PBC in the front row and even though Ipswich State High School went down 34 – 6, Josiah Pahulu had an outstanding match including a great run from the opening kick-off and some outstanding defence including a superb hit mid-way through the first half.

In the Courier Mail 2020 Langer Cup Team of the Year, Josiah Pahulu was named on the interchange bench and in the Courier Mail 2020 Top 30 South East Queensland school boy rugby/rugby league list he was named at No. 23.

At the Ipswich State High School 2020 Sports Awards Night, Josiah Pahulu was named Player of the Season, Best Forward and Best Senior Rugby League Player. Late in 2020 Josiah Pahulu was also named in the front row in the 2020 Ipswich State High School Rugby League Team of the Year.

In November 2020, Josiah Pahulu was named in the 2021 Ipswich Jets MM Cup squad and Josiah Pahulu is also MM Cup eligible in 2022.

The powerful, ball of muscle Josiah Pahulu was a member of the 2019 Queensland U15 Emerging Origin Squad and was also part of the Titans U16 side starting in the right second row position in their annual match against the Newcastle Knights Harold Matthews Cup (U16) side in Coffs Harbour in January 2020.

The Titans came away from the match with an 18 – 14 victory in wet conditions and some of the charges (and tackles for that matter) that Josiah Pahulu made were just outstanding especially some of his kick-off returns.

In addition, one of his hit-ups when Josiah Pahulu took the ball from the dummy half he was exceptional and accounted for twenty five odd valuable metres the majority of which were post contact, with the Newcastle Knights half amongst others vainly trying to drag Josiah Pahulu down to no avail.

In early 2020 Josiah Pahulu was selected in the Ipswich Diggers U16 representative side for the U16 South East Queensland Challenge which unfortunately was cancelled due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Josiah Pahulu would have played matches against Gold Coast (two) and Brisbane based (three) sides in the Challenge. All of those sides were set to contain multiple Gold Coast Titans contracted players as well.

In early October 2019 Josiah Pahulu was part of the Titans U15 side that played a Balmain Tigers U15 side at Piggabeen in Northern New South Wales with the Titans starting in the second row and producing an outstanding display to win 36 – 14 with Josiah Pahulu starting the match in the right second row position for the Titans and producing some powerful charges into the Balmain Tigers defence including from restarts, both kick offs and drop outs from their in-goal.

Josiah Pahulu was one of the standouts for the Titans U15 sides in their February 2019 matches against another Titans side and the Western Mustangs at the U15 level at Mudgeeraba where he started at lock and produced an outstanding display of rugby league.

In the match, Josiah Pahulu scored a barnstorming try against the other Titans side, taking the ball off the dummy half on the right side of the field and crashing over from around ten metres out from the try line.

Josiah Pahulu made another powerful run of about thirty metres later in the day when he took a short pass inside his own twenty metre line and smashed his way to around the half way line before being brought down in a tackle that required multiple defenders to complete.

Josiah Pahulu also had two try assists in his matches, both coming from off-loads close to the opponents try line, on each occasion the support player was able to score reasonably easily. The first pass was popped out around one a metre from the line with Josiah Pahulu engaged with three defenders and the second was when he got halfway through the line before offloading.

As a result of his performances in the Titans games noted above and over recent seasons for the Springfield Panthers in the Ipswich Junior Rugby League competition and Ipswich State High School, Josiah Pahulu, in early 2019 originally signed a multi-year contract with the Titans then in October 2020 signed a new three year deal with the Titans.

Early in the 2019 season Josiah Pahulu trialled for a spot in the Met West U15 rugby league side and to say he was dominant at the trials would be an understatement including an outstanding try when he received an inside ball easily broke through the defensive line before scoring under the posts from around thirty five metres out.

Josiah Pahulu represented Met West, where for me was the stand out Met West player at the 2019 U15 QSSRL Championships, in particular Josiah Pahulu was outstanding in matches against Peninsula and Met East. Subsequently Josiah Pahulu was selected in the Queensland White side for the 2019 U15 ASSRL Championships.

At the 2019 ASSRL U15 Championships Josiah Pahulu played primarily in the right second row position for the Queensland White side, playing particularly on Day Two against New South Wales Combined High Schools.

Late in 2019 Josiah Pahulu was also named in the Ipswich Diggers U15 Development Squad. Josiah Pahulu was also a standout player for the Ipswich State High School Year Ten side in 2019 playing primarily in the front row for the Ipswich based school leading them to the Quarter Finals of the Brisbane Broncos Cup competition.

In 2018 Josiah Pahulu played for Springfield Panthers Black in the Ipswich U14 competition playing in ten matches and scoring eight tries for an 80% strike rate including a try in the Grand Final that his Springfield side was able to win 24 – 4 against the Redbank Plains Bears.

2018 also saw Josiah Pahulu represent Met West at the U14 level and from there he was selected in the South East Queensland U14 side for the Queensland Age Championships, where he played all four of their matches starting each in the front row.

In 2017 Josiah Pahulu represented the Ipswich Diggers at the U13 level and prior to that Josiah Pahulu represented Toa Samoa in a two day tournament in Auckland. In 2017 Josiah Pahulu was also named the Springfield Panthers International Player of the Year.

The pace and power in terms of how he runs the ball is the outstanding feature of Josiah Pahulu’s game, he takes the ball to the line with speed, but Josiah Pahulu does not just put his head down and rush forward, Josiah Pahulu uses quick and subtle footwork prior to the line and seems to targets the gaps between defenders and will actively seek out opposing forwards who are slow to move up.

When the opposition are on the back foot Josiah Pahulu will target the smaller defenders on the edge of the ruck and burst through and for a big young bloke he has very good speed over the medium term and has the strength to drag defenders with him.

I would consider that Josiah Pahulu’s speed would be considered about average for a backrower (plus when he is playing in the front row) but plays faster as a result of him timing his runs so well that the dummy half can present a flat pass to him and also as a result of the power that Josiah Pahulu runs at.

Even though Josiah Pahulu gets back a long way and charges onto the ball to generate speed, he actually has good speed off the mark and utilises that trait when he runs out of dummy half or when he takes an off load with limited momentum.

Regularly Josiah Pahulu gets a quick play the ball as in a lot of his charges he gets partially through the defensive line but it is also due to his functional strength and powerful leg drive. On occasion players who fight for every metre, such as Josiah Pahulu that impacts on the play the ball, but that is not the case with Josiah Pahulu as a result of his core strength as he can move defenders off him by using the power in his legs and twisting appropriately.

Josiah Pahulu is also very effective close to the opposition try line with his ability to burst through tackles. If the defenders do not rush off their line Josiah Pahulu will just drag them across the try line with brute force and power.

With his continued development of which running lines he can utilise, such as running an inside shoulder line when close to the opposition try line Josiah Pahulu will become even more effective and will be an asset to the entire team as defences compress their line to combat his running thus leaving more room our wide for his play makers to exploit.

Simply put Josiah Pahulu is a brute of a ball runner. With his stocky powerful frame, low centre of gravity and bullocking front on running side Josiah Pahulu is an intimidating runner who excels in terms of returning the ball from kick off and drop outs when he is able to build up momentum and the fact that he never slows his speed when he hits the line.

The defensive side of his game is similarly impressive, Josiah Pahulu does not just charge wildly up looking for a huge hit but is calculating in where and when to hit. Quite a few of his tackles resulted in a knock on by the opposition as the ball came loose as a result of the impact of the tackle, he just hits so hard.

Josiah Pahulu drives hard with his legs and always uses his shoulder and core body strength to drive into his opponent. With his strength and technique Josiah Pahulu should likely always be considered a plus defender regardless of the quality of opponent that he is up against.

Impressive Josiah Pahulu is one of a rare breed of bigger forwards that can defend equally as well in the centre of the ruck and on the fringes. With his lateral mobility Josiah Pahulu can mirror the movement of attackers and is able to change direction quickly whilst maintaining balance and body control.

Having a sound repeatable defensive technique also aids Josiah Pahulu in being able to effectively defend against a variety of different types of attackers in multiple game situations. Similarly Josiah Pahulu is a start young man and he is not fooled or distracted by attempted feints by the attacking team and Josiah Pahulu concentrates on his role in the defensive line and is also able to diagnose attacking plays directed at him and is able to quickly work through his options and make the correct defensive read.

Josiah Pahulu will play the 2022 season with the Springfield Panthers in the Ipswich U19 competition and will also play for Ipswich State High School in the Langer Cup school boy rugby league competitions after starring for the Langer Cup side 2020 and 2021.

Josiah Pahulu is also a member of the Ipswich Jets 2022 MM Cup side after a superb 2021 season for the Jets 2021 side. It will also not surprise at all that after the competition of the 2022 MM Cup competition that Josiah Pahulu plays a number of matches for the Ipswich Jets Hastings Deering’s Colts squad.

Josiah Pahulu has spent time in the second row in previous seasons including for the Titans against Balmain and Newcastle but I believe going forward that he will find his niche at either lock or in the front row and be a dominant representative level one at that.

I know that people see the front row positions and lock as interchangeable these days but I still think that playing lock enables a player to move around the field in attack more and pick and choose where and when to inject himself into the game, thus to that extent I would prefer to see Josiah Pahulu in the No. 13 jersey.

Josiah Pahulu is as near a carbon copy for Canterbury Bulldogs and former Brisbane Broncos, Penrith Panthers and Samoan International forward Tevita Pangai Jnr as I have ever seen. Both Pangai Jnr and Josiah Pahulu are unbelievably powerful players who can smash through a defensive line themselves with speed and subtle late quick foot work and then have the outstanding speed and mobility to convert their own breaks into tries.

In defence both Pangai Jnr and Josiah Pahulu have strength, power and an outstanding front on tackling technique which means an opposition player will know that they have been hit and hit hard. Equally impressively both can make multiple hard tackles in a row and both shown the ability to completely take over matches for stretches on their own in both attack and defence.

I would argue however that Josiah Pahulu is far less prone to penalties, brain explosions or silly errors that Tevita Pangai Jnr due to his relative calmness on the field which should not however be mistaken for anything but a cold calculating mind set and steely fire and determination on Josiah Papulu’s behalf.

The Titans have a very special player on their hands with Josiah Pahulu, of that there can be absolutely no doubt, definitely no doubt at all. Josiah Pahulu projects as a young player who can break into the NRL at an early age and then have the maturity, intensity and skill to stay there for a long time.

[mdrew]

William Semu. The Brisbane based young centre or second rower signed a multi-year contract with the Titans in early 2020 that will see him in Titans colours for the next couple of seasons at least.
William Semu is a great signing for the Titans which will no doubt pay handsome dividends for both the Titans, Marsden State High School and William Semu himself over coming seasons.
In mid-December William Semu had the opportunity to train with the Titans NRL squad in a joint training session between the Titans NRL squad and the Titans JTS Program Squads
In January 2021 William Semu was part of a Titans U17 side that took on a Newcastle Knights side in what has become an annual match at Coffs Harbour with William Semu starting the match at left centre.
William Semu’s selection in the match is all the meritorious considering that he was still U16 eligible in 2021. William Semu had an impressive match for the Titans who came away from the match as deserved victors 32 – 20.
William Semu’s first touch of the match came early in the first half when he ran out of dummy half after a long Keano Kini break. William Semu ran out of dummy half to the right of the play the ball, making fifteen metres and then playing the ball quickly with the Titans scoring through Seth Nikotemo as a result.
In June 2021 William Semu started at left second row for a Titans U17 side that played a Titans Northern Rivers U18 squad at Cbus Super Stadium as a curtain raiser to the Titans Round Fourteen NRL match against the Sydney Roosters.
Amongst a multitude of outstanding pieces of domination, William Semu scored three tries including a long range forty metre try in the second half after Keano Kini engaged the defensive line and got a great one arm off-load away to put William Semu into space with William Semu surging away to score untouched.

In addition to his long range second half try, William Semu scored twice in the first half, the first of which came when after receiving the ball from his left from Keano Kini in space twenty out from the line, William Semu spun clockwise to gain separation from two defenders and charge towards the left corner. At the last moment, William Semu cut off his left foot to get between two defenders and get the ball down eight metres in from the left corner.

William Semu’s second try of the first half was a result of him leaping above the defence to take the ball on the pull and crash over five metres in from the left corner post after Bailey McConnell had put up a bomb towards the left corner, with the ball coming down two metres from the line.

I have no doubt that those three tries are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to William Semu scoring at Cbus Stadium in a Titans jersey.

William Semu was also part of the South Logan Magpies U16 Cyril Connell Cup squad in 2021, starting their trial against Wynnum Manly at Capalaba at right second row and played the majority of the match that the Magpies won six tries to one.

William Semu also started at right second row in Souths Logan’s final 2021 Cyril Connell Cup trial against the Tweed Heads Seagulls at Logan, with William Semu putting on an incredible display of power running and brutal tackling on the way to scoring two second half tries and in fact William Semu probably should have scored a hat trick but with the line open he could not take a long looped pass around ten metres out from the try line which to be fair the ball dropped towards his feet quickly.
William Semu’s first try came in the opening minutes of the third quarter when he ran onto the ball from around twelve metres out down a wide blindside on the right of the field and simply carried two defenders over the line to score five metres in from the right corner.
William Semu scored his second try in the fourth quarter when once again he ran the ball down a wide right blindside, William Semu received the ball twenty metres out from the Seagulls line and ran on an angle towards the right corner post, just before the line William Semu straightened easily beating the Seagulls left winger to score near the right corner.
William Semu also had an outstanding run in the first corner when he surged forty metres down the sideline beating at least four defenders.
As noted William Semu as also superb defensively in the match and it was in fact his defence that set up his first try. From the kick-off of the third quarter, William Semu smashed the Tweed Heads front rower returning the kick off, in the process jarring the ball lose. William Semu scored from the resultant set of six.
After William Semu could not get to the pass that could have led to his hat trick, William Semu took his frustration out on the next Tweed Heads runner, almost cutting the front rower in half as he was trying to bring the ball away from his own line.
In the first quarter of the match William Semu showcased all that his good about his game when he chased through a long Magpies kick to the right corner. The Tweed Heads winger was trying to bring the ball away from his own line, but William Semu got hold of him and strong armed him back into the in-goal to gain a restart for his team by way of a Tweed Heads goal line drop out.
William Semu started Round One of the 2021 Cyril Connell Cup competition at right second row as was his usual dominating self against the Burleigh Bears. In Round Two against the Ipswich Jets William Semu moved to the bench for the start of the match, coming on to score in the Magpies big victory.
Round Five against the Tweed Heads Seagulls saw William Semu once against start from the bench.

In late April 2021 Will Semu was named in the Metropolitan East Open School Boy side, an impressive effort for a sixteen year old when the majority of the other squad members were eighteen year olds.

William Semu started from the bench in Met East’s Day One match against the Sunshine Coast, slotting into left centre when he came on and got his Championships off to a great start by scoring in the 16th minute when he was on the end of a Met East passing movement with William Semu crashing over in the left corner.

William Semu started at left centre on Day Three of the Championships against Met West and made a powerful charge in the early minutes making ten metres after he ran out of dummy half to the right. Just a few minutes later William Semu made eleven metres from a penalty restart. Then late in the first half William Semu made a strong sixteen metre charge down the left touchline taking the ball ten metres into Met West territory.

The half time break did not slow William Semu down as early in the second half he made a superb charge cutting back to his right towards the play the ball from ten metres out, eventually being put to ground less than a metres from the try line. William Semu then played the ball quickly with Met East scoring as a result.

The Day Four fifth place play-off match against South Coast William Semu start the match at left centre and he almost scored in the opening minutes when he received a long cut-out pass from Dominique Sandow but unfortunately William Semu was bundled into touch desperately close to the left corner.

Not long after, William Semu almost become the provider when after receiving the ball near the left touchline he cut back inside then skipped back to his outside, drawing the right winger to seemingly put his left winger over but William Semu’s final pass was adjudged to have gone forward.

Then late in the first half, William Semu made an outstanding run of twenty eight metres with the run that included six tackle breaks originating from twenty five metres out from his own line.

Round One of the 2021 Langer Cup School Boy Rugby League competition saw William Semu start on the left wing against Keebra Park State High School.

Whilst the ball went to Marsden’s right side more often (right winger Teapo Stoltman scored four tries), William Semu was able to highlight his immense skill set including in the 22nd minute when after receiving the ball fifty two metres out, William Semu was able to kick out of the first tackle before cutting away from the left touchline, making fourteen metres before off-loading to Marsden SHS hooker Tyree Bowman.

William Semu was initially named on the left wing once again in Round Two against Ipswich State High School but ended up starting the match at left centre and was at his damaging best throughout the match including scoring a great try in the 21st minute by way of a bullocking run of thirty five metres down the left touchline, with the powerhouse youngster slamming the ball down one handed five metres in from the left corner.

William Semu almost scored a second try in the 32nd minute when he followed through an attacking kick to the Marsden SHS left corner, with the ball sitting up for William Semu in the in-goal but just as he was about to take possession and get the ball down, the Ipswich State High School right winger just got his hand to the ball and knock it dead.

In addition to his try, William Semu broke the Ipswich defensive line on the right on numerous occasions, including in the 17th minute when William Semu received the ball down the left channel forty five metres out and cut inside at his first opportunity, breaking four tackles to get to fifteen metres out.

William Semu made a further line break in the 24th minute when he ran an underneath route from Cassius Cowley bumping off two Ipswich SHS defenders before off-loading to Cassius Cowley who had stayed alive on the play.

It was clear from the opening moments that William Semu was in a “mood” and in just the 7th minute, William Semu produced the first of multiple damaging runs when he broke through the Ipswich SHS’s right sided defence to charge forty metres downfield before off-loading to his inside to Dominique Sandow.

William Semu’s courage was highlighted in the match when in the 3rd minute Ipswich State High School’s kick up went high and short, William Semu stood under the ball knowing he would be hit be William Semu held his ground and even when he was belted, William Semu more than held his ground.

Round Three against Wavell State High School saw William Semu move one place closer in, starting the match at left centre with power ball running once again coming to the fore including in the 52nd minute when William Semu broke the Wavell SHS right sided defensive line from a scrum with William Semu receiving the ball on his own twenty metre line before being dragged down just over forty metres from his own line.

Another run of note of William Semu’s in the match came in the 25th minute when, down the left channel, William Semu charged onto the ball from twelve metres from the line. After breaking five tackles, a plethora of Wavell SHS defenders had to stop him just short of the line.

William Semu was also strong defensively in the match including in just the 4th minute when he chased through a Marsden SHS clearing kick from inside their own twenty metre area, grabbing hold of the Wavell SHS fullback and forcing him back four metres in the heavy tackle.

William Semu continued at left centre in the Round Four blockbuster against PBC State High School with William Semu recording an outstanding try assist in the 32nd minute. Close to the line, William Semu charged at the try line but was hit by Michael Roberts near the line but was able to maintain his balance and spin clockwise to break contact. William Semu in fact could have scored himself but instead offloaded to his left winger who was able to dive over in the left corner.

William Semu had another outstanding moment after the final siren. With Marsden SHS down by six as the final siren sounded, from fifteen metres from their own line Marsden kicked towards William Semu who charged onto the ball and flew down the left touchline and just as he looked as if he had beaten the PBC fullback a desperate tackle from Keano Kini brought William Semu down just short of the line.

William Semu once again started at left centre in Round Five against Mabel Park State High School and it was clear from the opening minutes that William Semu was in for a big match with some strong runs and telling defensive work in the opening minutes.

Whilst William Semu did not score Marsden SHS he did record a second half try assist. In the 39th minute Marsden SHS attacked down a wide left blind side from their own twenty metre area. William Semu tracked the break, receiving an offload thirty metres out from the line and even though he was almost immediately tackled from behind, William Semu was able to get both arms free and offload to his left to his unmarked winger to score untouched.

The just a few minutes later in the 45th minute, William Semu broke four tackles in a devastating run that put Marsden deep on the attack. As soon as he was tackled, William Semu was on his feet to play the ball quickly with Marsden SHS scoring from the play as the dummy half ran the ball down a short blindside and offloaded to the left winger with the Mabel Park SHS defence still reeling from William Semu’s powerful run.

After the competition was suspended for a number of weeks due to a Covid 19 lock down, William Semu was named at left second row for Marsden State High School in their semi-final against Ipswich State High School.

In the 2021 Langer Cup Grand Final against PBC State High School, William Semu was named to start at left second row for Marsden SHS however he was a late scratching from the Grand Final side.

At the 2021 Marsden State High School Awards Night William Semu was named as the Junior Sportsperson of the Year and at the 2021 Marsden State High School Rugby League Excellence Awards, William Semu was named on the bench in the Marsden State High School Team of the Year.

The fact that William Semu was named on the bench in the 2021 Marsden SHS Team of the Year is the perfect indicator of the extraordinary quality and depth of the Titans Partnered Marsden State High School’s Rugby League Excellence Program.

Post the completion of the 2021 Langer Cup competition, William Semu was named by the Courier Mail as one of the 2021 Langer Cup most impressive rookies.

At the end of the 2021 season, William Semu was named at No. 26 in the Courier Mail Top 60 school boys from the GPS Rugby, AIC Rugby and Langer Cup competitions.

In relation to club rugby league in 2021, William Semu moved from Carina to the Souths Magpies in the GBJRL U16 Division One competition.

In 2020 William Semu attended Marsden State High School (Titans partnered) as part of their Rugby League Excellence Program playing in the Hancock Cup school boy rugby league competition across a number of positions including fullback and second row even though in previous seasons he was more known exclusively known as a second rower. A 2020 Hancock Cup team mate was Taelon Te Whiu-Hopa who was a fellow Titans contracted player.

In Round One of the 2020 Hancock Cup against PBC William Semu was outstanding as Marsden went on to record a big win with William Semu scoring a second half try in the match. With Marsden attacking the line around three metres out, William Semu called the ball off the dummy half down a short blind side on the left of the field and beat three defenders, including one with a spin move to score in the left corner.

In Round Two against Forest Lake State High School, William Semu also started at fullback (yes fullback) and was once again a key contributor to Marsden’s big win including scoring for the second 2020 Hancock Cup match in a row.

With Marsden on the attack ten metres out from the Forest Lake try line on the right of the field William Semu was standing behind the play the ball. Just as the ball was played William Semu took off to the right of the play the ball. Once he received the ball off the dummy half William Semu charged straight at the line and ran straight over the top of the initial defender before bringing the ball around to place it under the posts.

Round Four against Wavell State High School saw William Semu move to the left second row position and he had a huge match scoring a hat trick (and came close to scoring two others late in the match) as Marsden State High School had a big win against their Brisbane school rivals.

William Semu’s first try which was in fact the first try of the match was an outstanding long range individual effort by the talented young man. William Semu came back underneath the Marsden five eight on the left side of the field and burst through the Wavell defence forty five metres out from the Wavell line and easily rounded the fullback to bring the ball around to put it down under the goal posts.

William Semu’s second try of the first half came when he ran into a gap ten metres out from the Wavell State High School try line on the left side of the field off a well-timed and weighted pass from fellow Titan contracted player, Taelon Te Whiu-Hopa. As soon as William Semu received the ball he stepped off his right foot to ensure that the gap stayed directly in front of him and then no-one was going to prevent him from scoring mid-way between the corner post and goal post on the left side of the field.

William Semu completed his hat trick in the second half. With a scrum with a Marsden feed ten out from the line and ten metres in from the left touch line William Semu packed in at lock. William Semu picked up the ball at the base of the scrum and took off to the left down the short blind side and brushing off two defenders to score in the left corner.

William Semu, playing left second row added a further Hancock Cup try in Round Five against Coombabah State High School when once again he packed into a scrum with a Marsden feed at lock ten metres out from the line and ten metres in from touch. William Semu picked up the ball from the base of the scrum running to his left down the blind side and crashed over between two Coombabah defenders. The try was identical to a try that William Semu scored in Round Four against Wavell State High School.

William Semu could have had a double in the match, but after an outstanding run when he took the ball fifty metres out and stepping off his right foot to beat the initial defensive line. A strong right arm fend saw William Semu beat the fullback and stumble in the tackle before getting to his feet but the ball was stripped out over the try line.

In the 2020 Hancock Cup Grand Final against PBC William Semu started at left second row in Marsden’s after the final siren 26 – 24 win and produced some outstanding runs including one memorable one midway through the first half when after taking the ball off a Marsden Penalty restart charged directly through the PBC defensive line making twenty five metres through pure strength and power.

William Semu imposed his incredible skill on the match in the first half. Marsden put up a bomb towards William Semu’s side of the field. William Semu leapt above the PBC defence to take the contested ball on the full around eighteen metre out. William Semu maintained his balance when he landed and took off towards the try line. When he grabbed by the PBC defence, William Semu produced a top quality off load to his left with his right arm to send his support over for Marsden’s third try of the match.

After the competition of the preliminary rounds of the Hancock Cup and prior to the Grand Final William Semu made the move to the Marsden State High School Walters Cup side coming off the bench in their 14 – 12 semi-final victory over Keebra Park to progress to the Grand Final against PBC, scoring a first half try.

Keebra Park put in a short attacking kick which was fielded in the in goal by the Marsden fullback who took off down the left touch line, as the cover defence came across he passed inside to William Semu who had loomed up and sprinted fifty metres to score in the left corner.

In the 2020 Walters Cup Grand Final William Semu started at right centre for Marsden State High School as they defeated PBC with William Semu deservedly named player of the match on the back of a two try performance and setting up Marsden’s opening try.

As noted above, William Semu got the try assist for Marsden’s first try when after being tackled low, produced a perfect right armed flick pass to his right winger to race eighteen metres to score.

William Semu scored his first try of the match in the first half in a brutal display of size, speed, power and aggressiveness. William Semu backed up a break by the Marsden right winger. Once William Semu received the pass on the inside he immediately cut back towards the touch line around twenty metres out. On his way to the line, William Semu produced two powerful and aggressive left arm fends to literally throw off two attempted tackles before diving over for an outstanding try.

William Semu’s second try of the match which came in the second half was a long range solo effort when he swooped on a PBC error running eighty five metres, easily outpacing the PBC defence to score under the posts at the Easts League Club end of Langland’s Park.

In the Courier Mail 2020 Top 30 South East Queensland school boy rugby/rugby league list William Semu who was the youngest player on the list was named at No. 26.

At the 2020 Marsden State High School Rugby League Awards presentation, William Semu received a number of awards including being named in the 2020 Marsden State high School Rugby League Team of the Year.

The outstanding young second rower proved to be almost unstoppable on the left side of the field for the Titans U14 side in February 2019 in their 32 – 8 win over the Western Mustangs at Mudgeeraba in February 2019 and in fact was named the Titans best in the match that saw him score an outstanding individual try down the left side of the field that left a number of Western Mustangs on the ground in his wake. In the match William Semu formed a lethal left side combination with centre Karl Oloapu.
William Semu also started in the left second row position for the Titans U14 side that defeated a Titans NRRRL U14/15 Invitational side 32 – 10 in early October 2019 in a thoroughly entertaining and high quality match.
William Semu played for Carina in the 2019 GBJRL U14 Division One competition where a team mate was fellow Titans contracted player Hayden Miller. In total for Carina William Semu played in thirteen matches scoring three tries to finish with a 23.01% strike rate.
William Semu made his return from injury in Round Ten of the GBJRL U14 Division One competition against Souths Acacia Ridge and started the match in the No. 7 jersey. Throughout the match, William Semu operated on the left side both in attack and defence and made some good plays, including one outstanding run down the left touch line which looked like leading to an outstanding long range individual try but unfortunately William Semu just put his foot on the touch line to stymie an outstanding move.

With Carina in front late in the game against the previously undefeated South Acacia Ridge side, William Semu also pulled off some outstanding defence on his own try line, constantly turning back the Souths attack.

William Semu was heavily involved in Carina’s 2019 U14 GBJRL Finals series including their Major Semi-final victory over Souths Acacia Ridge and started at left second row in the Grand Final once again against Souths Acacia Ridge but unfortunately Carina went down 28 – 4.

In the Grand Final however William Semu has more than solid especially defensively including an outstanding try saving tackle right on his own try line to save what looked like a certain Souths Acacia Ridge try.

William Semu was due to represent the Brisbane Blue U14 side at the 2019 Hill Stumer Championships but was forced to miss the Championships where he was named in the second row for the Brisbane Blue side due to a wrist injury.

Post the GBJRL competition William Semu was named in the 2019 U14 Queensland Samoa side for the 2019 QPICC Championships. William Semu started in the U14 Final for Samoa as they went down 8 – 6 to PNG but scored a double in Round Three (one try in each half) also against PNG.
2019 also saw William Semu co-captain the Marsden State High School Broncos Challenge Year Eight school boy rugby league side, highlighting his leadership attributes and the esteem that William Semu is held in across the rugby league world.
In 2018 William Semu played for Carina in the GBJRL U13 Premier Division competition and started in the second row in the Grand Final with his Carina side coming away victorious 26 – 12 against a Redcliffe side that contained former Titans linked U14 player Karl Oloapu who started the match at five eight for the Dolphins.
2018 also saw the Marsden State High School student represent Brisbane Blue in the U13 trials and in 2017 William Semu represent Met East at the Queensland U12 Championships were he was selected in the centres.
William Semu is an outstanding athlete and this can be seen when he is running with the football. In his carries William Semu rarely takes a hit up without movement, he uses foot work prior to the line to look to break through as well as cutting either cutting back in behind the play the ball or cutting out towards the smaller defenders on the fringes of the ruck.

William Semu runs ‘fast’ into the defensive and his foot work prior to the line enables him to get partly through the line quite often, certainly more so than you would expect for a backrower taking the ball through the centre of the ruck. One reason for this is that he is a smart footballer, he does not try to run over defenders, but he runs at the gaps between defenders and uses his running speed to break through if defenders only use their arms on the tackle.

William Semu does not necessarily have a great top end speed, but he is certainly fast enough to get through to the full back prior to the arrival of the cover defence.

Playing on the left hand side of the field seemingly more often, means that his left foot step and his fending using his right hand are the effective attributes, but based on his physical attributes, his skill set and his understanding of how to play the game means that I have no doubt that these attributes are transferrable to playing on the left hand side of the field.

In defence William Semu regularly is the first player up to target the ball carriers, even though he is not one of the bigger forwards in his team and will make solid initial contact as well as having the ability of defending one on one.
When the opportunity presents William Semu has the ability to hit very hard, by setting a good base and driving through his lower body and core into his opponent. Ultimately though William Semu is a strong defender with a good front on technique and exceptional lateral movement to track and defend against smaller opponents either on the fringes or centre of the ruck.
William Semu will play the 2022 season in the U17 GBJRL Division One competition with the Souths Acacia Ridge Magpies in Brisbane’s South West.
2022 will also see William Semu continue to be a key member of the Marsden State High School Langer Cup Open A school boy rugby league campaign. 2022 will also see William Semu play for the Souths Logan Magpies in the MM Cup competition and William Semu will also be MM Cup eligible in 2023.

From a representative perspective in 2022 William Semu will line-up as part of the Souths Logan Magpies U18 MM Cup squad and William Semu is also MM Cup eligible in 2023.

For me, with his physical attributes and skill set indicates that William Semu will settle into the back row as his long term position with no need for a positional switch and will be a representative level second rower for many years to come.

I appreciate that William Semu also spent time in the halves for Carina in the 2019 GBJRL U14 Division One competition this season but I firmly believe that second row, specifically left second row is his ideal position moving forward.

Potentially William Semu may also be able to play in the centres like he did for the Met East U12 representative side in 2017. To be perfectly honest William Semu would be a potent force at left centre with his size, speed and strength.

Interestingly in 2020 for Marsden William Semu played a number of matches at fullback and certainly did not look out of place with his ball running, defence and ability to lead and direct Marsden around the field. When he was playing at fullback William Semu hunted just behind the play the ball so that he could attack on either side of the ruck when an opportunity presented itself and also packed in at lock, regularly running from that position, on the majority of occasions with devastating effect.

William Semu also spent time in the centres for the Marsden State High School Walters Cup side, including a two try Player of the Match effort in the 2020 Walters Cup Grand Final against PBC.

From a style perspective think of a someone along the lines of new Titans 2021 signing, former Brisbane Bronco, Queensland State of Origin and Australian International second rower David Fifita as an intense aggressive exceptionally talented well-rounded backrower with the ability to break the line by himself or as a result of running a good line, William Semu then like Fifita has more than enough speed to break into space prior to looking for his support players if he cannot go all of the way, which they both have the speed to do.

In the 2020 School Boy Hancock Cup (and some matches in the Walters and Langer Cup) for Marsden State High School anyone watching William Semu play could have been excused for thinking that they were watching Penrith Panthers fullback or centre Christian Creighton running around such was William Semu’s class in that competition and position being fullback and centre.

For completeness it should be noted that in the 2021 Langer Cup school boy competition, William Semu played the opening two rounds on the left wing for Marsden State High School before moving closer to the action at left centre for Round Three.

Like David Fifita, William Semu is also an extremely efficient and effective defender who will hit hard when the opportunity presents itself and looks to always dominate his opponents both mentally and physically in all aspects of the game. Once William Semu completes the tackle, he certainly is not adverse to giving the player that he tackles one more effort by continuing to driving them into the ground.

Similarly both William Semu and Fifita can play on either the left or right second row positions and both also swap over and play on the other side of the field as well over the course of a game, as both did on multiple occasions in 2020 as well as prior. Also like Fifita, William Semu has the physical ability and mental fortitude to make an impact at the NRL level (representative level too) at a very young age.

Put simply William Semu is just an exceptionally outstanding talent in both rugby (both fifteen man and 7’s) and rugby league and the sky is the limit in terms of just how far William Semu can go in his rugby league career and it great that the start of that journey (and hopefully end) will be with the Titans.

It is just not possible to use too many adjectives to try to describe just how much of a talent that William Semu is.

[mdrew]

Thomas Weaver. (Revised) The extremely talented young half back from the Cudgen Hornets Junior Rugby League club in Northern New South Wales recently signed a new multi-year contract with the Titans and to cap off an outstanding 2019 season Thomas Weaver was named in the New South Wales 2020 Future Blues Squad and in fact I believe was the youngest member of that elite representative squad.

Impressively Thomas Weaver in November 2021 commenced the NRL pre-season with the Titans main NRL squad and will spend the next two seasons training full-time with the Titans NRL squad as part of his NRL Development contract that takes Thomas Weaver up until the end of the 2024 rugby league season.

Also in late 2021 Thomas Weaver was part of the Titans NRL squad that undertook a joint training session with ninety members of the Titans JTS Program.

Thomas Weaver has been named to start the 2022 season as part of the Tweed Heads Seagulls Hastings Deering’s Colts squad and is also Colts eligible in 2023 although no doubt Thomas Weaver will make his Queensland Cup debut for the Tweed Heads Seagulls sooner rather than later in 2022.

In early January 2021 Thomas Weaver started at half back for the Titans U19 side in their annual match against the Newcastle Knights in Coffs Harbour and was heavily involved throughout the Titans 40 – 6 victory, crossing for two tries on his way to scoring twenty points when you add in his six conversions. In addition, Thomas Weaver also produced two of the most outstanding try saving tackles that you will ever see as well as a second half try assist and a line break to completely fill up the stats sheet for the Titans.

Thomas Weaver’s first try in the match was a first half effort, when Thomas Weaver ran into a gap down a blind side on the left, receiving a well weighted pass from Samuel Shannon who had run out of dummy half. Thomas Weaver flew through the gap and then rounded the Knights fullback by veering to his left and scoring ten metres in from the left corner post. The key to the try was that as soon as Thomas Weaver got through the gap, he ran directly at the fullback forcing him to bleed away all of his momentum and become stationary. Once all of the fullback’s momentum was completely halted, Thomas Weaver easily veered around him at full pace to the fullback’s right to score.

Thomas Weaver’s second try of the match came in the second half when once again he was operating on the left side of the field. Thomas Weaver took the ball and accelerated towards the line before dummying to his left and cutting back towards the right to beat the immediate defender in from of him. Thomas Weaver’s cut back opened up a channel to the line which he exploited, exploding off the mark to race ten metres to score twelve metres from the left upright for a scintillating try.

To add to his exceptional match, Thomas Weaver also recorded a second half try assist when he found himself in space after some impressive short passing on his inside right from Titans forwards, Jack Cullen and Samuel Shannon to open up the defence and give Thomas Weaver the room to operate. Thomas Weaver was then able to accelerate downfield and draw the fullback and pass to his right to Jaylan De Groot who had loomed up on his inside and Jaylan De Groot was too quick for the Knights cover defence to score under the posts.

Thomas Weaver also had a line break in the match, when he the 25th minute of the second half, he received an off-load from Xavier Stowers just ten metres out from his own line. Thomas Weaver was standing still when he received the ball but quickly reached top speed as he burst twenty metres down field to literally turn defence into attack for the Titans.

Thomas Weaver also produced two outstanding defensive efforts in the match which, on each occasion, prevented what appeared to be certain Newcastle tries. Late in the first half Newcastle threw the ball to their right in a sweeping backline movement. The Knights right centre had room to move as well as get up to top speed and charged at the line, Thomas Weaver however took the centre ball and all with the initial contact being only two metres out from the Titans line and bringing him down short of the line in what can only be considered an exceptional tackle.

Thomas Weaver saved a second certain Knights try in the second half of the match, once again on the left side of the field. The Knights five eight got through a gap ten metres out and seemingly just had to easily dive over the line to score, instead Thomas Weaver got to him through sheer determination with his initial contact more than enough to knock the ball from the Knights attackers grasp just as he was about to put the ball down over the line. Once again it was an exceptional effort by Thomas Weaver to get across in cover defence to put pressure on let alone then be able to tackle with sufficient venom to force the ball loose.

At the completion of the Titans U19 match against Newcastle, Thomas Weaver along with Samuel Shannon were named the Titans joint Player of the Match.

A week after the match against the Newcastle Knights Thomas Weaver once again lined up for the Titans U19’s starting at halfback for the second week in a row as the Titans took on a Burleigh Hastings Deering’s Colts squad with the Titans winning 32 – 20 with no conversions attempted.

Thomas Weaver for the second week in a row was one of the Titans best in the match recording a try assist, a line break and two line break assists as well as being involved in a number of other Titans tries. Like he was against Newcastle, Thomas Weaver was also very heavily involved defensively against Burleigh recording a number of telling tackles on bigger Burleigh forwards.

Thomas Weaver was in the match immediately taking the kick Newcastle kick-off on the full but it was not a regular take, Thomas Weaver jumped high and took the ball above his head, AFL style and in the one movement then sent a perfectly weighted pass to Jack Cullen to take the first hit-up of the match.

Thomas Weaver continued to be a significant contributor to the Titans cause in just the second minute when he got the ball away quickly and efficiently to his left to find Jaylan De Groot in space who then put Tony Francis away for the Titans opening try of the match.

Thomas Weaver’s try assist came in the 20th minute of the match. Thomas Weaver went into dummy half with the Titans on the attack ten metres out from the Burleigh line. From dummy half Thomas Weaver threw a long pass to his left which hit Ryan Foran on the chest outside of the widest Bears defender, Ryan Foran then scored near the left corner untouched.

Thomas Weaver almost had another try assist in the match when after receiving an offload from a charging Isaac Matalavea-Booth, Thomas Weaver had a two man overlap to his left, but his pass was knocked down by a desperate Bears right sided defender.

Prior to his try assist Thomas Weaver split the Burleigh line down the left side of the field. Thomas Weaver received the ball one pass off the back of a Titans scrum win, splitting the Bears defence with a deft left foot step and sprinted twenty metres downfield before being rounded up well into Burleigh territory.

Thomas Weaver’s two line break assists were also recorded in the first half, the first when he led left centre Tony Francis onto the ball and into a gap down the left side of the field in the 25th minute, with Tony Francis almost going the distance after a twenty metre run.

Thomas Weaver recorded his second line break assist late in the first half when he threw an inside pass to interchange forward TJ Devery to split the defence through the middle of the Burleigh ruck.

Thomas Weaver was also heavily involved in one of the Titans second half tries which turned into a long range effort. Thomas Weaver received the ball on his own thirty metre mark, drifting to his left before throwing a superb long cut-out pass hitting Kaleb Ngamanu on the chest as he flew into a gap whilst playing left centre. After a long charge Kaleb Ngamanu drew the Bears fullback to send Jaylan De Groot away untouched to score ins second try of the match.

Obviously Thomas Weaver’s attack gets a lot of the attention but defensively Thomas Weaver was exceptional in early 2021 and this included two further outstanding tackles against Burleigh. Early in the second half Thomas Weaver smashed the much older Bears five eight with an outstanding front on tackle, immediately knocking him off his feet.

Late in the second half, Thomas Weaver’s defence came to the fore yet again when he transitioned to his right to hit the Burleigh right second rower under his ribs. The Burleigh right second rower had received the ball off the back of a Bears scrum win in the Titans twenty and had room to gain momentum but Thomas Weaver put a stop to that with a crunching tackle on his much bigger opponent.

Thomas Weaver’s tactical kicking, which has always been one of his outstanding features, was on display against the Bears when he put up a huge bomb in the first half. The ball came down close to the left touchline with the Bears winger making hash of the attempted catch, with the Titans getting the ball back as a result.

In early May 2021 a Titans U19 side travelled to North Queensland to play an U19 Cowboys selection in a curtain raiser to a Cowboys v Broncos NRL match with Thomas Weaver starting the match at halfback for the Titans.

In November 2020 Thomas Weaver was named in the exceptionally talented Tweed Heads Seagulls 2021 MM Cup squad.

Thomas Weaver started at halfback in Tweed Heads final 2021 MM Cup final against the Souths Logan Magpies at Logan and found himself on the end of a heavy hit early in the match from Sione Fotuaika, who is also Titans contracted when Thomas Weaver looked to take the ball down a short left blind side.

After being on his haunches for a couple of minutes sucking in some deep breaths, Thomas Weaver bounced back quickly to be heavily involved in the Seagulls opening try of the match in their 32 – 4 (no conversions were attempted) victory.

Thomas Weaver received the ball on the left side and put in a high well weighted kick to the left corner. The Souths Logan Magpies right winger could not handle the ball and it fell to Campbell Watchairs who spun away from one defender superbly to dive over in the left corner.

Thomas Weaver also recorded a line break assist in the match in the second quarter when he took the ball to the left before passing back to his right to Jaylan De Groot who burst through the centre of the ruck only to be dragged down just as he was accelerating away.

Thomas Weaver recorded a further line break assist in the 8th minute of the third quarter when he received the ball from Blake Mozer who had packed in at lock and held the ball up as Riley Lack ran a straight decoy line, giving the ball to Keano Kini “out the back” who then made twenty metres downfield utilising his exceptional footwork to beat multiple tackles as a result of being put into the gap by Thomas Weaver.

Thomas Weaver also showcased his outstanding top end speed in the second quarter. Souths Logan Magpies captain and five eight Ezra Mam broke through the Tweed Heads right sided defence and chipped over the fullback with a foot race ensuing. Thomas Weaver started ten metres behind Mam and on the opposite side of the field but within twenty five metres Thomas Weaver had caught and in fact passed Mam in the race to the ball that was pulling up in the in-goal. Ultimately it was Keano Kini who got to the ball first from the left wing but Thomas Weaver’s effortless speed was a sight to behold.

In Round One of the 2021 MM Cup competition, Thomas Weaver started at half back and captained the Tweed Heads Seagulls side against the Ipswich Jets as Tweed Heads scored late to record a 22 – 20 first up victory.

Thomas Weaver was heavily involved in two of the Seagulls tries, the first being in just the 5th minute when he took the ball down a shortish left blindside and throwing a long cut out pass when he was forty eight metres out to his left to put Keano Kini away down the left touch line. Keano Kini got the ball back inside to Jaylan De Groot to score the Seagulls first try of the match.

Thomas Weaver was the catalyst for the Titans first try of the second half which came in the 40th minute of the match. Thomas Weaver, operating on his usual left side of the field, put up a bomb to the Seagulls left corner and it was perfectly weighted for Jaylan De Groot to come through with the momentum to take the ball on the full in the in goal to get the ball down a metre from the dead ball line.

Thomas Weaver was heavily involved in the Titans two point victory from a defensive aspect as well including a key tackle with a minute to go and the Titans under pressure on their own line. Thomas Weaver produced a big front on one on one tackle on the Ipswich left second rower (No. 11) who had caused the Seagulls defence all lots of problems the entire match. If Thomas Weaver’s tackle was not as good as it was, the Seagulls ultimate two point victory may well have not eventuated.

Thomas Weaver also started at halfback and captain in Round Two against the Souths Logan Magpies and was perfect with the boot kicking six from six including a key penalty goal in the 63rd minute of the match to push the Seagulls lead out to eight points. Thomas Weaver’s first conversion was an outstanding kick from the left touchline as he converted Keano Kini’s try in just the second minute of the match.

Thomas Weaver also had a big hand in a couple of Tweed Heads tries in the second half. In the 41st Thomas Weaver put up a huge bomb from around forty metres out that spiralled to the Souths Logan left corner and was dropped by the left winger with Tweed Heads scoring through Campbell Watchairs from the play the ball.

Thomas Weaver then threw the last pass for Jaylan De Groot’s 45th minute try. Thomas Weaver backed up a break out of dummy half by Blake Mozer and then drew the Souths Logan fullback before passing to the left to Jaylan De Groot who was able to bring the ball around to put it down under the posts.

Thomas Weaver also had a line break assist early in the match, when he was part of a set play down the left blind side from a Tweed Heads scrum feed forty metres out from the line. Thomas Weaver received the ball from the back of the scrum with fullback Jaylan De Groot sprinting from the opposite side of the scrum to take Thomas Weaver’s held up pass before dummying to his left and sprinting thirty metres downfield only to be brought down ten metres out.

As it has all this season, Thomas Weaver’s defence was outstanding once gain including a strong front-on tackle in the 6th minute when he took on Souths Logan second rower Vincent Sefo, with the second rower losing the ball in Thomas Weaver’s tackle.

Thomas Weaver also showed his exceptional intelligence in the 30th minute of the match. After Ezra Mam had converted EJ Finau’s try, Thomas Weaver raced to the halfway mark, kicking off as soon as possible, kicking the ball to where Ezra Mam usually stands. Ezra Mam was still trying to get back into position when Thomas Weaver kicked off with the ball going dead in the in-goal to get the ball back for Tweed Heads.

Thomas Weaver once again started at halfback and captain in the Round Three Gold Coast derby against the Burleigh Bears. In addition to kicking five conversions from six attempts, Thomas Weaver also had two try assist in the match, one from a kick and a second from a deft inside pass. In addition Thomas Weaver’s kicking game regularly kept Burleigh on the back foot.

Thomas Weaver’s first try assist of the match came in just the second minute when moving to his right he put in a deft grubber kick from ten metres out and even though it appeared that Burleigh fullback Syris Schmidt had grounded the ball, after Seagulls second rower Jayden Wright dived on the ball the referee awarded the try.

Thomas Weaver’s second try assist came in the 44th minute when he ran down a short left blind side ten metres out from the line and passed back to his right to put Jaylen De Groot into a yawning gap who was able to bring the ball around to put it down under the posts.

As has become the norm when discussing a Thomas Weaver performance his kicking game cannot go unmentioned, including a great chip kick in the 34th minute to the left wing. The kick forced the Burleigh fullback to reach out when he was trying to take the ball on the full with the ball hitting the fullbacks finger tips and going into touch less than a metre out from the try line.

Early in the second half, in the 42nd minute, Thomas Weaver once again put in a great short chip kick directed to the left corner with the kick precisely placed which forced the defenders to knock the ball dead.

Thomas Weaver was also named captain and to start at halfback for Round Four match against the Ipswich Jets, kicking six goals from nine attempts (his three misses were all from the touchline) with a number of his goals coming from right on the touchline including to convert Kruz Remine’s first and fourth tries. Thomas Weaver also recorded two try assist in the Seagulls 48 – 24 victory.

Thomas Weaver’s first ty assist came in the 23rd minute of the first half when he kicked across field to the right corner with Thomas Weaver putting the ball right onto the chest of Campbell Watchairs as he crossed the try line

Thomas Weaver added a second try assist in the second half in the 63rd minute and on that occasion Thomas Weaver produced a perfect kick to the left wing and put it on the chest of Kruz Remine to score his fourth try of the match. The kick was a lot more difficult than it sounded as the ball only got to Thomas Weaver after bouncing twice and then with limited time, very limited, Thomas Weaver kicked the ball off just one step.

The impressive thing about the two kicks was that they were to both wings and both were inch perfect.

In addition to his two try assists, Thomas Weaver was also heavily involved in a number of other Tweed Heads tries including in the 12th minute when Thomas Weaver threw a long pass to his left to find Kaleb Ngamanu who went into the line before passing to his left also to Kruz Remine who dived over in the left corner. It was the exact same combination of players and the exact same play in the 32nd minute that led to another Kruz Remine try.

Thomas Weaver produced a similar pass in the 19th minute, this time to Ryan Foran who ran downfield before passing to his left to Kruz Remine who once again crossed in the left corner.

Thomas Weaver’s kicking game, in addition to his two try assist (noted above) was exceptional all match and was only added to in the 11th minute, when Thomas Weaver’s hard, low kick-off could not be taken by the Jets, going dead with Tweed Heads getting the ball back from an Ipswich goal line drop out.

Thomas Weaver was not just involved in scoring points in the match, he was also involved in saving points when in the 29th minute Thomas Weaver produced a great low one on one tackle on the rampaging Ipswich Jets right second rower (No. 11) just five metres out from his own line.

Thomas Weaver also started at halfback in Round Five against the Souths Logan Magpies, kicking five conversions from seven attempts in the Seagulls 38 – 14 victory.

After being rested in Round Six, Thomas Weaver was named at halfback for the Seagulls Semi-final against Wynnum Manly and recorded a try assist and made a line break in relation to the same play.

Thomas Weaver moved into dummy half in the 56th minute, with the play the ball just ten metres out from his own line. Thomas Weaver darted down a short left blindside into a big gap. As he approached the Wynnum Manly fullback and halfway mark, Thomas Weaver kicked the ball back inside and it sat up perfectly for Elijah Lui to retrieve the ball and dive over.

Thomas Weaver’s kicking game was on song through the match, including in the 31st minute when he put in a right foot stab kick which was so well weighted and placed that the Wynnum Manly fullback had no choice but to knock the ball dead.

Thomas Weaver kicked well once again in the 39th minute, on that occasions the ball got to Thomas Weaver on the bounce with Wynnum defenders closing in. Thomas Weaver, even though he was being tackled was still able to get a right foot kick away towards the left corner which was knocked on by Wynnum Manly just five metres out from their own line.

In the 2021 MM Cup Queensland Grand Final against the Townsville Blackhawks, Thomas Weaver once again captained the Seagulls side and also started at halfback as the Seagulls won back to back MM Cup Championships after beating the Blackhawks 30 – 24 with Thomas Weaver contributing four conversions from five attempts and a late first half penalty gaol from almost in front.

One of Thomas Weaver’s conversions was a critical one coming with less than two minute on the clock in the 68th minute to tie the match put Tweed Heads in front 26 – 24. Thomas Weaver took the conversion thirteen metres in from the right touchline and it never liked missing as it sailed through the centre of the goal posts.

Tweed Heads were under pressure early and in the 6th minute, Thomas Weaver along with Jaylan De Groot and Oskar Bryant were able to stem the flow by holding of a rampaging Townsville front rower (No. 8) to stop the Blackhawks from scoring twice in the opening minutes.

Thomas Weaver’s kicking game was on song in the 8th minute of the Grand Final when he put in a right foot grubber kick to the left with the Townsville fullback being force in-goal by left second rower Ryan Foran.

Defensively Thomas Weaver was also very good in the Grand Final pulling off a try saving tackle in the 40th minute when he got hold of the jersey of the Townsville fullback five metres out and was able to affect the tackle to stop what looked a certain Blackhawks try.

Deservedly Thomas Weaver was named the MM Cup Grand Final’s Players Player and in the Queensland Rugby League 2021 MM Cup Player of the Year Award Thomas Weaver was awarded seven votes.

In mid-February 2021 Thomas Weaver was named at halfback row in the school boy Oceanic Opens side for the South Coast school boy QSSRL U18 trial against Broadwater. Following the final round of trials, Thomas Weaver was named at half in the 2021 South Coast U18 school boy QSSRL squad.

Thomas Weaver captained the South Coast side at the Championships as well as starting at halfback including in their Day One match against Met North with Thomas Weaver kicking three conversions.

As usual Thomas Weaver controlled the match for South Coast and kicked well, including in the 48th minute when he ran to the line before from ten metres out, putting in a grubber kick for himself, which he was able to regather directly in front of the posts and he was then awarded a penalty for being initially held back.

Thomas Weaver was also his elusive self when running the ball in the match including a dummy and go in the 38th minute when he would have been through the line but for a high tackle which was deservedly penalised.

Probably Thomas Weaver’s biggest contribution in the match came from a defensive perspective. In the 4th minute, Thomas Weaver made a key tackle on the Met North left winger, just two metres out from the try line with Thomas Weaver’s initial contact forcing the ball loose.

Thomas Weaver also started at halfback on Day Two as South Coast took on Met East with Thomas Weaver kicking six goals including an impressive conversion from the right touchline in the 30th minute.

Thomas Weaver captained the South Coast team from halfback in the Championship final against Met North kicking two conversions and also recording a try assist in the match.

Thomas Weaver’s try assist came in the 36th minute. Met North were on the attack five metres from the try line and on the last tackle kicked to their right, Thomas Weaver was on hand to take the hard kick straight at him on the full three metres out from the line and immediately took off down field. Around twenty metres out from his own line, Thomas Weaver drew the Met North fullback and passed to his right to Jye Gray who ran eighty metres to score.

Thomas Weaver was also heavily involved in Ryan Foran’s scoring in the 22nd minute try when he picked up a wickedly bouncing ball and threw a cut-out ball to his left in one motion. Subsequently Ryan Foran ran into space to score wide out on the left. Thomas Weaver then converted the try from wide out on the left.

Thomas Weaver also made some strong defensive efforts in the match including in the 16th minute when he along with Ryan Foran forced Met North back five metres to just out from his own line.

On Day Three against Capricornia Thomas Weaver, who once again started at half back, recorded two try assist and kicked four goals as South Coast remained unbeaten.

Thomas Weaver’s first try assist came in just the 3rd minute of the match when he put up a pin point bomb to the left wing for South Coast to cross. Thomas Weaver’s second try assist of the match was as a result of another perfectly weighted bomb to the left corner, with Thomas Weaver converting the try from the touchline.

At the completion of the Championships, Thomas Weaver was named at halfback in the 2021 QSSRL U18 School Boy Merit Team.

In late August 2021 Thomas Weaver was also named at halfback in the 2021 Australian School Boys U18 Merit Team.

2021 also saw Thomas Weaver lined up once again for PBC State High School in the South East Queensland School Boy Langer Cup competition with Thomas Weaver representing PBC at the 2021 Langer Cup launch.

After missing Round One against Ipswich State High School Thomas Weaver as back for Round Two against St Mary’s College Toowoomba, starting at halfback as well as captaining the side.

In PBC SHS’s big 44 – 12 victory Thomas Weaver in addition to kicking six goals from eight attempts, recorded two try assists as he expertly directed PBC around the field.

Thomas Weaver’s first try assist of the match came in the 8th minute when he ran the ball to the left, putting the ball onto the chest of Ryan Foran who had run a good outside shoulder route to score three metres in from the left corner post.

Thomas Weaver added a second try assist in the 51st minute when he ran straight at the line after receiving the ball from the dummy half to the left of the ruck and just prior to contact with the St Mary’s line threw a no look short inside ball to fullback Michael Roberts ten metres from the line, with the fullback easily forcing his way over the line mid-way between the corner post and goal posts on the left side of the field.

Thomas Weaver continued at halfback and captain in Round Three against Coombabah State High School and was the catalyst for PBC’s come from behind victory, scoring one try and setting up another in the final ten minutes to get PBC over the line. Thomas Weaver also kicked three conversions from four attempts in win.

Thomas Weaver got PBC’s come back going with a great try assist in the 51st minute when he took the line on down a wide left blindside, stepping off his left to break the line form twenty five metres out before drawing the Coombabah SHS fullback and passing to his right to put his replacement front rower over under the posts.

Thomas Weaver completed the PBC comeback by scoring a great solo try in the 56th minute when once again he ran the ball down the left side of the field, with the effort starting thirty metres out. Thomas Weaver ran at the line before stepping off his left to break the line and then produced another left foot step to leave the Coombabah SHS fullback in his wake and then was able to comfortably put the ball down under the posts.

Thomas Weaver continued at halfback and captain in the Round Four blockbuster against Marsden State High School kicking four goals from five attempts including two from the left touchline in the first half in PBC’s impressive 28 – 22 victory.

Thomas Weaver was also involved in multiple PBC tries including in first the second minute of the match when whilst operating on the left side of the field, he ran the ball to the line before at the last moment putting in a deft right foot grubber kick which sat up perfectly for Reef Sommerville to retrieve and dive over in the left corner.

Thomas Weaver’s second try assist of the match came in the 26th minute when from two passes to the left of the play the ball, Thomas Weaver put up a perfectly weighted bomb to the left corner with Hunter Plogesma able to leap above the defenders to score in the left corner.

Thomas Weaver almost scored himself in the 46th minute when from a PBC scrum win ten metres out and to the left of where the scrum as packed, Thomas Weaver sliced through the Marsden SHS right sided defence but three defenders were able to hold him up over the line.

Thomas Weaver also put in a great kick in the 50th minute when after receiving the ball mid-field twenty metres out and to the right of the play the ball, he kicked back towards the left corner with the Marsden right winger knocking the ball on under pressure from Reef Sommerville.

Thomas Weaver continued at halfback and captain for the much anticipated Round Five local derby against Keebra Park State High School kicking three goals and recording a 10th minute try assist when he put in a pin point kick to the right side of the field with the ball falling perfectly for Michael Roberts who took the ball on the fly and was able to bring the ball around to score a spectacular try under the posts.

Thomas Weaver was named to continue at halfback in Round Six against Mabel Park State high School however he was a late scratching from the match.

After the competition was suspended for a number of weeks due to a Covid 19 lock down, Thomas Weaver was named at halfback and captain for PBC State High School in their semi-final against Keebra Park State High School.

Thomas Weaver put in an assured performance to lead PBC to the 2021 Langer Cup Grand Final, recording two try assists as well as well as converting Jett Forbes first half intercept try.

Thomas Weaver’s first try assist came in just the 7th minute of the match when whilst operating on the right side of the field, from around twenty metres out Thomas Weaver put in a right foot stab kick towards the left corner with Jett Forbes the beneficiary when he was able to retrieve the ball and score in the right corner.

Thomas Weaver’s second try assist came in the 45th minute when once again Thomas Weaver put in a right foot stab kick, on this occasion from twelve metres out. The Keebra Park fullback was unable to handle the ball with Brock Priestley diving on the loose ball in the in-goal twelve metres in from the right corner.

Thomas Weaver also put in a great right foot kick in the 20th minute that pulled up in the in-goal with the Keebra Park fullback unable to get the ball back into the field of play before he was stopped by Oskar Bryant and Michael Roberts.

Thomas Weaver was on hand to prevent a Keebra Park try in the 12th minute when he along with Ryan Foran and Keano Kini held up one of the Keebra Park front rowers over the try line.

In the 2021 Langer Cup Grand Final against Marsden State High School, Thomas Weaver was named to start at halfback and captain for PBC and controlled things well especially from a tactical kicking perspective including in the 45th minute when he put in a great right foot grubber kick from fifteen metres out into the in-goal forcing Marsden SHS to restart the match by way of the goal line drop out.

Post the completion of the 2021 Langer Cup competition, Thomas Weaver was named at halfback in the Courier Mail’s 2021 Langer Cup Team of the Season.

Thomas Weaver was then named at halfback and captain for PBC SHS in the Queensland Open School Boys Final (Phil Hall Cup) against St Brendan’s College Yeppoon with Thomas Weaver kicking four conversions in PBC’s huge 62 – 0 victory, including an outstanding 17th and 24th minute conversions from the right touch line.

Thomas Weaver’s short kicking game was also on song in the Grand Final including in the 14th minute when from twelve metres out and just to the right of the goal posts Thomas Weaver put in a right foot stab kick to his right into the in-goal with the St Brendan’s fullback trapped in the in-goal.

Thomas Weaver also recorded a try assist in the Grand Final when in the 46th minute Thomas Weaver took the ball to the line and just five metres out from the line threw a good short ball to his left for Ryan Foran to crash over eight metres in from the left corner post.

At the end of the 2021 season, Thomas Weaver was named at No. 3 in the Courier Mail Top 60 school boys from the GPS Rugby, AIC Rugby and Langer Cup competitions.

In early 2020 Thomas Weaver started at half for the Titans U18 side in their annual match against the Newcastle Knights SG Ball (U18) side in Coffs Harbour. Thomas Weaver had a try assist late in the second half when he put up a bomb towards the left corner which the Northern Rivers Titans scored from.

Kedan Chan-Tung chased through Thomas Weaver’s perfectly weighted bomb, which landed two metres out from the Knights line, leaping over the Knights defence to take the ball on the full around three metres from the Knights line. With no way to get to the line Kedan Chan-Tung flicked the ball out of the back of his right hand to the left side of the field to an unmarked Jahreem Bula who was playing on the left wing to dive over in the left corner untouched.

Thomas Weaver was named to start at half back for the Northern Rivers Titans in Round One of the 2020 U18 Laurie Daley Cup against the Parramatta Eels at Cudgen however the match was cancelled due to the wet conditions on that weekend.

Thomas Weaver started Round Two of the U18 Laurie Daley Cup at half against the Newcastle Knights in Ballina kicking an outstanding nine from nine in the match. Thomas Weaver also showcased his outstanding tactical kicking skills in the match with a 40/20 plus a great forty five metre kick to trap the Knight fullback in his own in-goal.

Thomas Weaver also started at half back in Round Three against the Central Coast Roosters recording three try assists in the Northern Rivers Titans twenty six point victory. Thomas Weaver also kicked one conversion from two attempts in the win.

Thomas Weaver’s first try assist of the match was identical to many that he recorded last season. Thomas Weaver took the ball to the left of the field, close to the Central Coast line and threw a great pass to Titans left second rower and favourite target Ryan Foran who ran an outside shoulder route to crash over.

Thomas Weaver recorded a second try assist in the first half when a bomb that he put up to the left corner bounced perfectly for centre Daniel Butterini to put the ball down a metre inside the field of play.

Thomas Weaver’s third and final try assist of the match came in the centre half. He ran the ball to the right of the field shapes to pass but instead stepped off his left foot to break the line and drew the fullback to send Ryan Foran away to score near the left corner.

Thomas Weaver also started at half back in Round Four against the Greater Northern Tigers filling up the stats sheet with a try, a try assist and one goal from as many attempts as well as some strong defence.

In relation to his try, Thomas Weaver ran to the right of the play the ball with the ball in two hands. As he approached the defensive line on a forty five degree angle, Thomas Weaver dummied to his left stepping back inside off his left foot to slice through the Tigers line, when he came to the fullback, Thomas Weaver once again to comprehensively beat the fullback to score mid-way between the side line and goal posts on the left side of the field.

Thomas Weaver recorded a try assist in the first half when he ran to the left and popped a pass back to his right to send fullback Jaylan DeGroot into a big gap to score.

Thomas Weaver also started at half in the Round Five local derby against North Coast having an outstanding match in the twenty six all draw finishing with four try assists and five goals from six attempts including a pressure penalty goal with two minutes remaining in the match in lock the scores up at twenty six all.

The penalty goal in itself was not necessarily in itself a difficult kick with the kick being take from around fifteen metres to the left of the uprights, but with the game in the balance and the Titans unbeaten record on the line, it was certainly a pressure kick that Thomas Weaver easily kicked, showing no sign of nerves. His only miss was from right on the left touch line.

Thomas Weaver’s first try assist was scored by Ryan Foran, running to the left side of the field, Thomas Weaver put in a right footed stab kick which North Coast could not handle and Ryan Foran was on hand to score. His second try assist was also from a first half kick. Thomas Weaver clearly aimed for the left upright from seventeen metres out hitting it perfectly and Reef Somerville was on the spot to score next to the left upright.

An impressive aspect in relation to the two kicks that Thomas Weaver put in was that they were to opposite sides of the field, once again displaying just how good Thomas Weaver’s tactical kicking already is.

Thomas Weaver’s third try assist of the first half came when he drifted to his left and popped a great ball to a hard charging Daniel Butterini to burst into a gap and run twenty metres to score on the left side of the field. Thomas Weaver’s fourth and final try assist was a critical on elate in the match when he threw a long cut out pass to his left over the head of defenders to left winger Keegan Pace who scored in the left corner.

Thomas Weaver started training with the Cudgen Hornets U18 NRRRL side in June 2020 and team mates in the side included fellow Titans Bailey Martin, Jack Cullen and Reef Sommerville amongst others.

Thomas Weaver started Round One of the 2020 NRRRL U18 competition at half back as Cudgen travelled to Byron Bay to take on the Devils with Thomas Weaver scoring one of Cudgen’s three tries in their 14 – 10 victory.

Thomas Weaver was easily the best player on the field as Cudgen booked a place in the NRRRL U18 Green Grand Final scoring a double, kicking three conversions, a critical forty metre penalty goal and forcing two line drop outs in a 24 – 16 Preliminary Final win over the Bilambil Jets.

Thomas Weaver’s first try of the match came when he ran out of dummy half, running at a 45 degree angle at the line with the ball out in front of his body in two hands and shaped to pass before sliding through the defensive line to score.

Thomas Weaver received a long pass out of dummy half to score his second try. Once he received the ball from the dummy half Thomas Weaver immediately straightened up his run to slip through the Bilambil line that was sliding across the field to score adjacent to the left upright.

Thomas Weaver was also outstanding in the 2020 NRRRL U18 Green Grand Final, scoring one try, setting up two others, kicking four from five conversions including one from the left touchline in the second half and also kicking a 40/20 which ultimately led to a Cudgen try in the first half.

Thomas Weaver’s try was an opportunist one, when he was on hand to pick up a bouncing ball after the Hornets had put in a grubber kick. The ball was bouncing off a number of legs, before Thomas Weaver scooped it up close to the line. Initially it appeared that Thomas Weaver had been stopped prior to the line but he was able to keep his arm holding the ball off the ground, being his right and then reach out with that arm to put the ball down ten metres in from the right touch line.

Both of Thomas Weaver’s try assist came in the first half and both were as a result of long cut out passes to his left to his support players. Really the only difference between the two passes was that the cut out pass to Jaylan De Groot was a touch longer.

Thomas Weaver made his NRRRL First Grade debut in Round Three when he started at five eight against the Bilambil Jets, recording a try assist and kicking two conversions in the Hornets victory. Thomas Weaver’s try assist came when he took the ball on the right side of the field and put in a grubber kick, which was pounced on by a Cudgen chaser after it rebounded off multiple legs. Both of Thomas Weaver’s conversions were exceptional kicks from the right touch line and were outstanding efforts.

After initially being named to start at five eight Thomas Weaver started from the bench in Round Four of the NRRRL First Grade competition kicking four goals from five attempts including an outstanding kick from the right touch line for his second conversion of the day against Murwillumbah as Cudgen won 28 – 20.

Round Five saw Thomas Weaver start at half back against the Bilambil Jets and scored his career first NRRRL First Grade try as well as kicking a conversion both in the second half as the Hornets went down 22 - 18.

Thomas Weaver also played in Round Eight of the 2020 NRRRL First Grade competition, starting from the bench against the Tweed Coast Raiders, kicking a conversion as the Hornets went down 18 – 14.

In a sign of the faith that Cudgen have in him, Thomas Weaver started at five eight in the Hornets 2020 NRRRL First Grade Elimination Final loss to the Bilambil Jets with Thomas Weaver kicking one from two conversions.

Also in 2020 Thomas Weaver, in his first year at PBC, was part of the PBC Langer Cup Open A school boy rugby league squad, where he operated primarily in the halves on the left side of the field.

Thomas Weaver started Round One of the Langer Cup at half back as PBC took on Ipswich State High School putting in an outstanding display in a PBC 22 – 10 victory, scoring a try, kicking three from three conversions, recording a try assist and throwing the final pass to his left on both occasions for Damon Sommerville’s two tries.

Thomas Weaver scored his try early in the first half and the try was in fact the first of the match. Thomas Weaver took the ball two passes off the ruck on the left side of the field ten metres out from the line, dummying to his outside before slicing through the defence and diving over under pressure from two Ipswich defenders.

The try assist that Thomas Weaver recorded came late in the match and sealed the PBC victory. Thomas Weaver got into dummy half throwing a dummy to his right before breaking through the centre of the ruck from sixty metres out. Thomas Weaver beautifully drew the fullback before sending front rower Xavier Williamson away to score under the post to seal the win. The try was one of the three that Thomas Weaver converted.

Thomas Weaver also started at half back in Round Two against Wavell State High School and filled up the stats sheet once again, recording two conversions and a late match penalty goal which tied the score at 18 all, recording a try assist, forcing a goal line restart and making a first half try saving tackle when he came from the clouds to crash into the Marsden five eight who was set to score Thomas Weaver literally came from nowhere to make the tackle.

Thomas Weavers try assist came early in the match when, operating to the left of the play the ball, Thomas Weaver put in a deft right foot kick from twenty metres out. The ball bounced perfectly up two metres out from the try line for the PBC left winger not to have to break stride to take the ball on his chest and dive over.

PBC’s Round Three Langer Cup match against St Mary’s Toowoomba also saw Thomas Weaver start at half back and kick two conversions from three attempts as PBC maintained their winning start to the 2020 Langer Cup competition.

In addition to his two conversions, Thomas Weaver forced to goal line restarts with short attacking kicks into the left corner which the St Mary’s defence had no choice but to take over the dead ball line. Also late in the first half, Thomas Weaver split the St Mary’s defence from a subtle dummy half to his left. It appears that he would score when he beat the fullback but Thomas Weaver was brought down just short of the line.

Thomas Weaver was also heavily involved in Reef Somerville’s second half try. Thomas Weaver put up an ideally weighted bomb to the right corner. Troy Duckett rose high to take the ball on the full and as he was being pushed back was able to pop the ball to Reef Somerville who crossed in the right corner.

Thomas Weaver also started at half back in the Round Four local derby against Keebra Park scoring one try, creating two others and kicking three from four conversions. Thomas Weaver’s try came late in the first half and at a critical point in the match. With PBC down 14 – 0 and PBC on the attack, Thomas Weaver took the ball on the right of the play the ball and took the line on himself from ten metres out. Thomas Weaver dummied twice to his left before breaking two tackles spinning counter clock wise to get to the line under heavy pressure and twisted further to get the ball down with two Keebra Park defenders hanging off him.

Both of Thomas Weaver’s try assist came in the second half and both were down the left side of the field. In relation to his first try assist, Thomas Weaver received the ball off the dummy half ten metres out from the Keebra Park line just to the left of the uprights and accelerated towards the defensive line before pulling up quickly and stepping subtly to put Daniel Butterini into a gap with a superbly weighted and timed pass.

Thomas Weaver’s second try assist just minutes later was no less impressive, once again with PBC on the attack also around ten metres out from the line, Thomas Weaver once again received the ball off the dummy half and immediately threw a great fifteen metres cut out pass to his left to winger Troy Duckett to score in the left corner. The key to the pass was not just its length it was also the speed it was thrown as the pass got to Troy Duckett so quickly that the Keebra Park right winger had absolutely no time to readjust and get to Troy Duckett before he scored.

Thomas Weaver continued at half back in Round Five against Marsden State High School, kicking four conversions from five attempts, including an outstanding first half effort from the left touch line, with his only miss in the second half also from the left touch line. To be fair the miss only barely missed.

Thomas Weaver also recorded two try assists which where for all intents and purposes identical, with one coming in each half. On both occasions, Thomas Weaver received the ball on the left side of the field, running at the ball to engage the defenders before throwing a long cut out pass to his left to Diane Mariner on both occasions to score in the left corner. The key to both tries was that Thomas Weaver looked to take the line on and thus hold the defenders in place and not just slide to cover the outside support runners.

Thomas Weaver also started at half back for PBC as they qualified for the 2020 Langer Cup final on the back of an impressive 34 – 6 victory over Ipswich State High School kicking five from six conversions and also throwing the final pass for PBC’s opening three tries of the match.

Thomas Weaver’s first try assist came early in the first half when he took the ball right to the line on the left side of the field before throwing a long cut out pass to left winger Troy Duckett who dived over from close range. Thomas Weaver’s third try assist, which came early in the second half was similar to his first with the recipient on that occasion being Deindre Mariner.

Thomas Weaver’s second try assist came in the first half, once again on the left side of the field, after shaping to throw a long pass, Thomas Weaver held the ball up to put fullback Jaylan De Groot into a gap and he was able to step the Ipswich fullback to bring the ball around to score under the posts.

Thomas Weaver started the 2020 Langer Cup Grand Final at half back for PBC as they defeated Keebra Park 16 – 8 in a high quality match kicking a conversion from the left touch line and a key penalty goal early in the second half, recording two try assists and also forcing Keebra Park to restart play on three occasions from drop outs as a result of outstanding attacking kicks, forcing Keebra Park to make the ball dead.

Both of Thomas Weaver’s try assists came in the first half and both on the left side of the field and like multiple other occasions in the Langer Cup in 2020, Thomas Weaver took the ball right to the line before off-loading to his left.

For his first try assist, Thomas Weaver put a great short pass to a charging Daniel Butterini who was running an outside shoulder route into a gap and his second was a long looping cut out pass to Troy Duckett to dive over in the corner.

Understandably Thomas Weaver was named the Player of the 2020 Langer Cup Final.

In the Tally for the Justin Hodges Medal for the Langer Cup Player of the Year, Thomas Weaver received two votes in Round One against Marsden State High School.

In the Courier Mail 2020 Langer Cup Team of the Year, Thomas Weaver was named in starting side at half back and in the Courier Mail 2020 Top 30 South East Queensland school boy rugby/rugby league list Thomas Weaver was named at No. 3 and in fact was the top rated rugby league player with the top two places being taken by rugby players.

In the Queensland School Boys Final against Kirwan State High School Thomas Weaver started at half back as PBC travelled to take on their North Queensland based opponents scoring a second half try and kicking two conversions in PBC’s 24 – 20 loss.

Thomas Weaver’s try came when he was operating on the left side of the field and he received the ball two posses wide of the ruck. Immediately when he received the ball Thomas Weaver ran at the line with the ball out in front of him in two hands, producing a great show and go to beat the defender directly in front of him before getting the ball down in the tackle of the Kirwan fullback fifteen metres in from the left corner post.

In early 2019 Thomas Weaver started at half for the Titans U16’s and captaining the side in their match at Coffs Harbour against the Newcastle Knights and was involved in the first play of the game being the opening tackle after the kick off on the Knights front rower with team mates, Brody Smitka and Ryan Foran.

Like in previous matches for the Titans Junior Development sides, Thomas Weaver was in the thick of the action against the Knights directing the Titans around the field and scored a good solo try in the second half when he stepped off his left foot about ten metres out from the Newcastle Knights line and beat two or three defenders, plus dragged one over the line to score just to the left of the goal posts for the Titans first try of the match.

Against the Knights Thomas Weaver operated primarily on the left side of the field with five eight Riley Lack operating on the right. When the Titans had a scrum feed, Thomas Weaver played as the first receiver with Riley Lack feeding the scrum.

Just like he has in a number of matches, Thomas Weaver had the ball on a string and included in his outstanding passing game was a great cut out pass to left winger Kaleb Ngamanu who got outside his direct opponent and sprinted down the touch line on a 40 metre run before passing the ball inside to centre Ezra Ubaldino.

I do want to site a specific example or two of Thomas Weaver’s tenacity, late in the first half he put in a great kick from around 30 metres out from the Newcastle line with the ball pulling up a metre short of touch in goal, instead of sitting back resting on his laurels, Thomas Weaver was the first Titan down the field and made the tackle to trap the Knights fullback in the in goal.

It was a similar situation for the Titans captain in the second half, he put in a kick from around forth metres out which held up a metre or so from the touch in goal making the Knights fullback have to play the ball and whilst on that occasions he did get out of his in-goal, once again Thomas Weaver was the first Titan down the field to make the tackle.

Just to round off his outstanding kicking display in the match, one of his kicks for touch in the second half made around fifty metres, it was just an outstanding kick and put the Titans well and truly on the attack.

In June of 2019, Thomas Weaver started at half for the Titans U18 side in their match against North Queensland that was played as the curtain raiser to the Titans/ Warriors NRL match in June, an impressive feat considering that the majority of the players that he was up against were already 18 years old.

In March of 2018 Thomas Weaver captained and started at half back for a Titans U15 Invitational side that defeated a Western Mustangs U15 side six tries to three (no goal kicks were taken) with Thomas Weaver being one of a number of stand outs for the Titans.

In the match against the Western Mustangs he formed a solid combination with five eight Jed Bignell. To be honest, it was clear in that match that Thomas Weaver was the leader of the team, he dictated the Titans tempo and controlled the play well from a game management perspective determining who got the ball, where the play was to and the ultimate aim of the particular set up six tackles and was the Titans primary tactical kicker.

Thomas Weaver also had a try assist in the match when he threw an outstanding flat ball to left centre JT Manufeoata who ran into a whole to score out wide in the first half. Thomas Weaver was also the Titans primary tactical kicker in the match.

Late in the 2018 season Thomas Weaver started at half back for the Titans U15 as they defeated a U15 Balmain Tigers touring side 16 – 10 with Thomas Weaver being prominent throughout including throwing a great cut-out ball to winger Kaleb Ngamanu to score in around the 6th minute when he flashed down the left touch line untouched and was able to bring the ball around under the posts to help back Thomas Weaver’s conversion a whole lot easier.

Thomas Weaver was also involved in Rowan Mansfield second half match sealing try against Balmain throwing the first of a chain of passes through five eight Jye Gray to Kaleb Ngamanu who put Rowan Mansfield into a gap down the sideline. Rowan Mansfield used an outstanding in and away to beat the Balmain fullback to score untouched after a seventy metre run just to the right of the goal posts. Once again making Thomas Weaver’s conversion attempt a whole lot easier.

Thomas Weaver almost scored himself in the match when he was backing up an outstanding fifty metre second half run from Kaleb Ngamanu when he expertly fielded a low kick and split the defence from his own line, but unfortunately just could not find Thomas Weaver with the inside pass.

Clearly Thomas Weaver and Kaleb Ngamanu have developed a good rapport which hopefully continues all the way to the NRL.

In Round One of the 2019 U18 Andrew Johns Cup competition Thomas Weaver started at half back for the Northern Rivers Titans in their match against the Newcastle Knights Development Squad and like in matches described above, captained the side and pulled the strings for the Titans in their big 38 – 8 victory and contributed five goals from seven attempts.

Thomas Weaver can really throw a great long pass and showcased that once again for the Titans in Round One when he set winger Matthew Avery away down the left touch line. The match also saw Thomas Weaver force three drop out with outstanding kicks each coming from around thirty metres out from the Newcastle line each pulling up in the Newcastle in goal.

Thomas Weaver also had a first half try assist when he drifted to his right and threw a great short ball to left second rower and fellow Titans contract player Ryan Foran who charged thirty metres to score late in the first half.

Round Two of the 2019 Andrew Johns Cup competition saw Thomas Weaver once again line up at half in their match against Parramatta and yet again he had an outstanding match scoring twenty four points from two tries and eight conversions from nine attempts.

Both of Thomas Weaver’s tries were from backing up plays. In his first half try, Thomas Weaver threw a great cut out ball to his left to send winger Jack Field away and then backed up to receive a pass back from the winger to score. Thomas Weaver’s try in the second half came when he backed up a break from interchange forward Byron Jones to score.

Thomas Weaver also had a try assist when he drifted to his left and put left second rower Ryan Foran on his way to the try line, a try which was eerily similar to the try that the two put on in Round One against Newcastle.

As in Round One Thomas Weaver also had the ball on a string from a kicking perspective, with both of his first two kicks of the game being outstanding, the first trapping the Parramatta fullback a metre out from his own line where he had to dive to the ground or he would have been either pushed into touch and back into the in-goal in the left corner and the second even better forcing a drop out.

Thomas Weaver’s outstanding game included two try saving tackles in the second half helping to keep the Northern Rivers Titans line intact. On the first occasion he held a Parramatta player up in the left corner after making up an impressive amount of ground and in the second instance, after a long Parramatta break, Thomas Weaver stripped the ball from the Eels centre when he looked set to score.

Thomas Weaver also started at half in the Round Three local derby against the North Coast Bulldogs and added another three try assists to his outstanding 2019 Andrew Johns Cup campaign. Two of his three try assists, one in the first half and the other in the second where eerily similar. Thomas Weaver took the ball down a short blind side close to the North Coast line and on each occasion threw a cut out pass to winger Jack Field (Craig Field’s son) to score.

Thomas Weaver’s other try assist was providing a good pass to left second rower Ryan Foran to crash over. In each of the first three rounds Thomas Weaver and Ryan Foran have combined on the left side of the field for a Ryan Foran try.

In Round Four against the Central Coast Roosters Thomas Weaver started again at half and captain and well once again was special, with five conversion and an incredible six try assists, five from passes and one from a kick.

Thomas Weaver impressively garnered a try assist in each of Titans left centre Keegan Pace’s three first half tries. In Keegan Pace’s first and third tries, Thomas Weaver drifted across field, forcing the Central Coast defence to back pedal and then found a straight running Keegan Pace with a great pass to his left.

The other try assist in the first half for a Keegan Pace try was when Thomas Weaver split the Central Coast defence on his own twenty metres through a hard straight and when confronted with the fullback, Thomas Weaver popped a good ball back across his right shoulder to send Keegan Pace away to score under the posts.

Thomas Weaver was also involved in two tries in the first half for Titans left second rower Ryan Foran. Thomas Weaver and Ryan Foran combined for a try in each of the opening three rounds but combined for two in Round Four.

For Ryan Foran’s first try, Thomas Weaver took the ball quickly to his left about five metres out from the Central Coast line and passed to Ryan Foran who ran an outside shoulder route to score. In the second try, Thomas Weaver ran to his left from a scrum win and again with Ryan Foran running an outside shoulder route found him with a pass for Ryan Foran to run twenty metres to score.

In the second minute of the second half Thomas Weaver got his sixth try assist of the afternoon when be put in a good grubber kick near the posts which the Central Coast defence could not defuse with the Titans pouncing on the mistake to score under the posts.

Thomas Weaver also forced a Central Coast line drop out in the match after a great klick from around forty metres out with Titans left centre Keegan Pace making the tackle in the Central Coast in-goal.

Thomas Weaver also started at half back in Round Five against the Greater Northern Tigers adding five conversions to his points tally and another try assist when he grubbered into the in goal area for Riley Lack to score the first try of the match.

Thomas Weaver could have scored two tries of his own in the second half from scrum moves but on each occasion he was dragged down just short of the line. On each occasion Thomas Weaver Thomas Weaver looped around five eight Riley Lack putting the defensive line under pressure but unfortunately was on each occasion dragged down just shy of the try line.

Thomas Weaver was also dominant in the Northern Rivers Titans semi-final victory over Penrith scoring a double and kicking three conversions from five attempts. In relation to his first try Thomas Weaver was the recipient of an outstanding piece of work from second rower Ryan Foran. Ryan Foran charged down a Penrith kick and passed immediately to Thomas Weaver upon retrieving the ball for Thomas Weaver to sprint forty five metres to score.

Thomas Weaver’s second try came just two minutes after the first. Thomas weaver backed up through the centre of the ruck after an outstanding run from lock Bailey Cox, who offloaded to fullback Jaylan De Groot who was able to find Thomas Weaver to space to race away and score an outstanding team try.

Thomas Weaver could in fact have finished the match with at least a hat trick but was adjudged to have knocked on when attempting to ground the ball from a kick after the siren to conclude the first half.

Thomas Weaver also had a try assist in the match. Operating on the left of the field close to the Penrith line, Thomas Weaver took the ball right to the line before popping a good short ball to his left to Ryan Foran to crash over.

In the 2019 U16 Andrew Johns Cup Grand Final against the Western Rams Thomas Weaver started at half captaining the side to an 18 – 6 victory, contributing ten points from a try and three conversions from three attempts. Thomas Weaver also had a try assist when he threw a good flat ball for lock Bailey Cox to crash over for the first try of the match.

In the second half, Thomas Weaver scored after receiving a pass from fullback Jaylan DeGroot. DeGroot had field a kick on his own try line with the Western Rams on the attack and then offloaded to Thomas Weaver to sprint ninety metres to score under the posts. As a result of his performance, Thomas Weaver was named player of the final.

Post the victory Thomas Weaver was named at halfback for the New South Wales Country U16 side for their November 2019 three match tour of the United Kingdom and was also named in the 2019 New South Wales U16 36 man train on squad and was one of only four New South Wales Country players in the squad, two others being fellow Titans Riley Lack and Ryan Foran.

Thomas Weaver flew out for the United Kingdom tour from Sydney in mid-November 2019 and started Game One of the tour at half also captaining the side scoring twenty points from an individual perspective from a try and eight goals in a Player of the match performance as New South Wales Country U16’s won big 62 – 0 win over the U17 UK Community Lions. Thomas Weaver also had a try assist with a pin-point kick to Rowan Mansfield’s left wing for the fellow Titan’s contracted player to score.

Thomas Weaver’s try in the match come in the second half when he was operating on the left of the field two passes off the ruck. Thomas Weaver took the ball and immediately dummied to his left before a subtle left foot step put him into space around ten metres out and Thomas Weaver was able to sprint the remainder of the way to dive over adjacent to the left upright and then converted his own try.

Thomas Weaver also started at half in Game Two of the tour as the Country U16 side defeated the Leeds Rhino’s 32 – 10. Thomas Weaver also had his second try assist from kicks in as many games when he grubbered through for Jock Brazell to score after thirty minutes mid-way between the corner post and goal post on the left side of the field.

Thomas Weaver also had another try assist in the match when he threw a good short ball to his left which sent his ball runner on a twelve metre uninterrupted run to the line touching down ten metres from the left upright.

Thomas Weaver added a third try assist in the match late when he put up a bomb to the right corner which could not be held by Leeds with Reef Sommerville picking up the pieces to crash over in the right corner.

In the final match of New South Wales Country U16’s UK tour Thomas Weaver produced yet another dominant performance after captaining the NSW Country side from half back scoring a double and kicking seven tries from nine attempts to score twenty two points as NSW Country defeated the Community Lions 62 – 6.

Both of Thomas Weaver’s tries came in the second half, the first when he split the defence through an individual effort mid-way through the half and the second when he scored after a great offload from Bayley Cox with four minutes remaining.

Thomas Weaver also had a try assist in the match when he scooped up a louse pass before drawing a defender to send fellow Titan Riley Lack on a ten metre run to score.

The New South Wales Country U16 side played a New South Wales U16 Harold Matthews squad as a curtain raiser to the Penrith/Warriors NRL match on a Friday night at Penrith Park in May. Thomas Weaver started the match at half back.

Even though the NSW Country side went down 16 – 6, Thomas Weaver who captained the side was outstanding including converting Country’s only try of the match, which was scored by fellow Titans contracted player, hooker Oscar Bryant.

It was his defence that stood out in the match with Thomas Weaver making two try saving tackles, the first in the first half was a classic cover defending tackle down the right touchline and the second was when he tracked back to stop one of the giant Harold Matthews forwards, Thomas Weaver rounded him up from behind dragging him down with the assistance of fellow Titan Rowan Mansfield.

After that match, Thomas Weaver was selected in the New South Wales U16 side that defeated a U16 Pasifika team 36 – 6 at Belmore Sports Ground on Sunday 9 June with Thomas Weaver starting the match at five eight.

At the Northern Rivers Awards night held in April, Thomas Weaver received the 2019 Players Player Award for the U16 Andrew Johns Cup side. Thomas Weaver then added the Ron Lanesbury Medal to his collection for the 2019 U16 Andrew Johns Cup Player of the Year.

Just a week after the Andrew Johns Cup final Thomas Weaver made his NRRRL U18 debut in Round Three for Cudgen, starting on the wing against Murwillumbah and scored a try and kicked four goals from seven attempts in an outstanding debut as his Cudgen side defeated the Murwillumbah Colts 36 – 0.

In Round Four of the NRRRL U18 competition, Thomas Weaver moved into five eight and kicked three goals from five attempts as Cudgen defeated Byron Bay 26 – 10.

Round Five of the NRRRL U18 competition saw Thomas Weaver start at five eight and he kicked three from three as the Hornets defeated Ballina 18 – 12.

After missing time with an injury Thomas Weaver came back into the Cudgen NRRRL U18 side for their Round Fifteen match against Kyogle which Cudgen won 64 – 0 and kicked three goals in Round Seventeen against Murwillumbah to prove that he was definitely over his injury.

In total in the 2019 NRRRL U18 regular season competition, Thomas Weaver played in eight matches scoring thirty six points from two tries and fourteen goals, with his tries coming against Murwillumbah and Kyogle.

Thomas Weaver added a goal in his point’s tally as Cudgen defeated Lismore Marist Brothers 24 – 10 in Week One of the NRRRL U18 Finals series and was also involved in Week Two of the Finals as Cudgen went down 26 – 20 against Ballina kicking two conversions in the match.

In the Week Three Final, being the NRRRL U18 Preliminary Final Thomas Weaver scored a try and kicked three conversions from as many attempts as Cudgen booked their place in the 2019 U18 NRRRL Grand Final against Ballina with a 24 – 4 win over Byron Bay.

Thomas Weaver came off the bench in the first half of the NRRRL U18 Grand Final plying five eight when he came on as Cudgen went down 24 – 6 to Ballina in a match which was closer than the score line indicates.

Thomas Weaver was also part of the dominant Cudgen 2019 U16 Group 18 side that won their Grand Final 44 – 6 against Byron Bay/Lennox Head.

In 2019 Thomas Weaver was named joint Player of the Year for the Group 18 U16 Junior Rugby League competition with fellow Titan Ryan Foran.

Thomas Weaver was also part of the St Joseph’s College Benora Point school boy rugby league side in 2019 including a member of the side that won the Grand Final of the New South Wales All Schools U16 competition.

The team travelled to Sydney for the 75th year of the competition. After not winning a game in 2018 the Banora Point U16 side defeated Bega 32 - 6 and then Red Bend Forbes who won it last year 18 - 0 in their opening two matches.

A forfeit from the Manly district, Banora Point Mulwaree 18 - 0 in the semi-final. The Grand Final against Wadalba from the Central Coast was a tough contest and after trailing 4 - nil early Benora Point scored two tries for a 10 - 4 victory.

2018 saw Thomas Weaver represent Group 18 in the New South Wales Country Age Championships scoring a try and kicking eight goals in his three Championship matches. Thomas Weaver scored against Group 21 and also kicked six goals in that match to finish with sixteen points and also kicked two goals in a tough 16 all draw with Group Two.

In April of 2018 Thomas Weaver was selected in the Northern Region New South Wales Combined Catholic Colleges (CCC) U15 side for the New South Wales trials. Thomas Weaver was the half back in the side after being selected from St Joseph’s College Benora Point.

After those CCC U15 trials Thomas Weaver was selected in the New South Wales Combined Catholic Colleges U15 team for the ASSRL U15 Championships where he was up against the Queensland Maroon and White sides which both contain Titans contracted boys.

Thomas Weaver started at half back for the NSW CCC side in the National U15 Championship Final against Queensland White. Thomas Weaver kicked a conversion in their loss against a Queensland White side for whom fellow Titans contracted player Orlando Swain was one of Queensland’s try scorers.

After the completion of the 2018 season Thomas Weaver and fellow Group 18 U15 team mates headed overseas to play in the Battlefield Challenge to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the end of World War I, a competition that the side won including victories against Emory Moor 12 – 6 and Leigh East 18 – 12.

In a warm up match in England prior to the Tournament they defeated a Hemel Stags U16 side and post the Tournament defeated French side Aude Cathare. A number of other Titans players will also be involved in the tour including Keegan Pace, Jack Cullen and Ryan Foran. On the tour Thomas Weaver won a number of Player of the Match awards such was his dominance across the entire tour.

Thomas Weaver is also an outstanding touch player who has represented his region with distinction in multiple touch competitions and tournaments in both Queensland and New South Wales including last year’s Queensland Championships.

The Titans contracted young half backs 2017 rugby league commitments ended when he was part a the Titans U15 Invitational side that played against a Balmain Tigers side at Cudgen and even though they were defeated the young Titans players put in a great effort on the night against a primarily older Balmain Tigers side.

Thomas Weaver and his U14 Cudgen Hornets side had a great club campaign in the 2017 Group 18 junior rugby league competition going through the U14 competition undefeated with their skill and discipline on show in every match.

The outstanding young Group 18 half back was a constant threat to opposing defences in the New South Wales Country Age Championships early in 2017 where Group 18 were defeated in the U14 Final with Thomas Weaver scoring Group 18’s sole try in the final and then he converted his own try. In two of the preliminary rounds Thomas Weaver kicked two goals apiece including a local derby against Group One to finish with a point’s total of 14 over the course of the NSW Age Championships.

Earlier in 2017 season Thomas Weaver was selected in the Northern Region Combined Catholic Colleges side at half back representing St Joseph’s College Benora Point. In 2015 Thomas Weaver was selected in the New South Wales U12 side for the Australian U12 Championships and that same year after being named Player of the Final for Cudgen in the Group 18 U12 competition was also named as the U12 Group 18 Player of the Season.

Even though Thomas Weaver has plus acceleration off the mark and above average top speed, his primary focus on a football field is to direct his side around the field, putting his side where they need to be to maintain pressure on the opposition. Holding the ball out in front of his body in both hands enables Thomas Weaver to put doubt into the minds of the opposing defensive line and thus Thomas Weaver can dummy and run if there is a gap in the defensive line or put his support runners into gaps.

This trait was in evidence in this year’s Titans 2019 U16 match against Newcastle when he dummied and stepped off his left foot to score the Titans first try of the match.

Thomas Weaver’s decisive nature also means that when the ball needs to get out to his backline he will get it out there quickly to give his outside backs as much space as possible to work with prior to contact with the opposing defensive line. Getting the ball out to the back line quickly is no issue for Thomas Weaver as he has a very good long passing technique which delivers the ball quickly and accurately to the right place.

In defence, due to his size Thomas Weaver is obviously not going to come up with the big hit but reads the play well and can hold his own when defending much bigger players and against players with similar size is very aggressive when finishing off his tackles. Thomas Weaver is also very vocal on the field always talking and encouraging his side.

Thomas Weaver is also a very good goal kicker with both good range and accuracy. I would suggest that he is likely to be his side’s primary goal kicker regardless of the level he progresses to into the future.

Thomas Weaver also has a very good short attacking kicking game with a positive being that he will go right to the line before dropping the ball to his foot, add to the fact that he regularly runs with the ball out in front of his body in both hands, he gives defensive lines a lot to consider, is Thomas Weaver going to kick, run or pass, a defensive line that anticipates incorrectly will be scrambling to recover before he makes them pay for their error in judgement.

Like with his goal kicking Thomas Weaver has a real opportunity to be his team’s primary tactical kicking option going forward.

Thomas Weaver is contracted to the Titans until the end of the 2024 season and in 2022 will likely start the season in the Tweed Heads Seagulls Hastings Deering’s Colts side and is also Colts eligible in 2023.

It would not surprise at all that over the course of the 2022 season that Thomas Weaver breaks into the Tweed Heads Seagulls Queensland Cup side and it is hard not to see Thomas Weaver make his NRL debut with the Titans in 2023.

From a position perspective with his speed and rapidly developing ball playing, game management and tactical kicking skills, Thomas Weaver has an opportunity to develop into a very talented young player who can play half back at the NRL or representative level at a young age. The more that Thomas Weaver has the ball in his hands the better it is for his entire team as was evidenced multiple times over recent seasons. At 172cm and 74kg Thomas Weaver is not the biggest player by any means but he certainly does not rely on his size to dominate matches.

Thomas Weaver is just an outstanding player and one that I cannot think of a current NRL player with similar attributes. For comparison purposes however, Thomas Weaver controls and his side around the field and kicks and passes at the Cooper Cronk level.

Like Cronk, Thomas Weaver has a wide variety of skills which he is developing and whilst they may not all develop at the same pace or a linear fashion, they surely will all be above average to plus attributes at least when it is all said and done.

Thomas Weaver does far more however than control play, he will take the defensive line on regularly and to that extent an ideal comparison when Thomas Weaver runs the ball is fellow Titan and Queensland State of Origin fullback AJ Brimson. Both Brimson and Thomas Weaver have explosive speed off the mark (as well as when they reach top speed, which is very quick) as well as outstanding quick twitch feet which enables them to step off both feet with ease with absolutely no loss of momentum at all.

Thomas Weaver is rapidly developing into a very talented young play maker indeed and certainly a player to keep an eye on as he progresses through the Titans junior development ranks to enevitably the NRL. Thomas Weaver is an exceptional talent with a maturity level beyond his young age and shapes as a player who can make the jump to the NRL straight out of high school. In that basis Thomas Weaver may move into the Titans Top 30 NRL squad as early as 2023.

The other exceptional trait that Thomas Weaver possesses is outstanding leadership and it is no wonder that the Titans selected Thomas Weaver to captain their U15, U16, U18 and U19 sides over the last three seasons and that he captained the outstanding 2019 U16 Andrew Johns Cup Northern Rivers Titans side, New South Wales Country U16 side and the 2020 U18 Northern Rivers Titans Laurie Daley Cup side, just to name a few. Of course Thomas Weaver also captained the Tweed Heads Seagulls MM Cup side in 2021 with great success and also the PBC Open A Langer Cup side to their 2021 success as well.

Thomas Weaver’s leadership skills are far more than just being the captain of a top level team, Thomas Weaver has all the hall marks of not just an NRL captain or even a club captain but a representative level one as well, including at the State and International level.

From a leadership perspective in rugby league, the best two leaders I have seen and probably has ever been is Cameron Smith and Wally Lewis. Thomas Weaver’s leadership skills are right up there in that same category, he will back his team mates no matter what but at the same time will let them know when they have to change their attitude, behaviour or the way that they are conducting themselves on the field from a playing or attitude perspective as the match progresses.

I am more than comfortable associating the word Ïnspirational” with Thomas Weaver’s outstanding leadership attributes, it suits him absolutely perfectly even for a player so young.

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Oscar Laffranchi. In late 2021 Oscar Laffranchi played his first match in a Titans jersey when he played for the Titans U15 JTS Squad in a trial in hot and steamy conditions which challenged the players fitness and stamina.

In late January 2022 Oscar Laffranchi started in the front row for the Titans U16 side in a match at Pizzey Park against a Sydney Bulldogs U16 Development squad.

In late 2021 Oscar Laffranchi was named in the Burleigh Bears U16 Cyril Connell Cup competition.

In late 2021 Oscar Laffranchi was named in the Miami Raptors Oztag side for the 2022 Queensland U16 Junior State Cup.

Oscar Laffranchi played the 2021 season for Burleigh in the Gold Coast Rugby League U15 Division One competition including being involved in the Grand Final when the two Burleigh sides played each other in the decider.

Running with the football, Oscar Laffranchi has good footwork prior to the line and does not often just put his head down and run straight but uses his solid footwork to try to work the gaps between defenders rather than trying to simply run over them. Oscar Laffranchi does not have great speed off the mark or necessary great high end speed, but he will work hard and make the most of his ability. Oscar Laffranchi actually does have a decent off load when he has impacted the defensive line as well.

Defensively Oscar Laffranchi is not a big hitter per say and usually aiming for just under the ribs and first intention is to lock up the ball to prevent offloads and stop the momentum of the ball carrier as soon as possible.

One area where Oscar Laffranchi is quite effective whether he is defending on the fringes of the ruck or in the centre of the ruck including when he is defending at marker, is defending against smaller attackers who look to use their foot work against him in one on one situations.

Oscar Laffranchi has quite reasonable lateral mobility for a middle forward and due to the fact that he also is not necessarily that tall, Oscar Laffranchi usually is able to wrap up the smaller attackers without his tackles slipping up to around the head or neck, and thus giving away penalties.

In 2022 Oscar Laffranchi will start the 2022 season as part of the Burleigh Bears U16 Cyril Connell Cup squad before playing in the Gold Coast Rugby League U16 Division One competition also with the Burleigh Bears as the Bears look to replicate their 2021 GCRL U15 Division One Premiership success.

Like his father Anthony, Oscar Laffranchi is a forward who is equally at home in the front row or the second row but Oscar Laffranchi probably projects slightly better in the second row (just like his father) moving forward in his rugby league career with his decent foot work and solid speed for a modern day rugby league middle forward.

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Sam McAlister. In late January 2022 Sam McAlister started from the bench for the Titans U18 JTS side in a trial match at Pizzey Park against the Burleigh Bears MM Cup side for his first match in Titans colours as he trials for a Titans JTS contract.

Sam McAlister came into the match in around the 22nd minute and made an immediate impact with a strong tackle from a Titans kick-off with Sam McAlister’s strong front on initial contact knocking the ball loose from the grasp of the Burleigh player.

Sam McAlister also made a strong tackle in the 37th minute when he from front on made a driving tackle on the Burleigh No. 17.

Sam McAlister then made his first hit-up in a Titans jersey in the 29th minute with a great run that accounted for an impressive eighteen metres through the centre of the Burleigh forward pack to get the ball eight metres into Burleigh territory after running onto the ball to the left of the dummy half.

In late 2021 Sam McAlister was named in the powerful Burleigh Bears MM Cup squad and Sam McAlister is also MM Cup eligible in 2023.

In 2021 Sam McAlister was part of the Burleigh Bears U16 Cyril Connell Cup squad, starting Round One in the front row against the Souths Logan Magpies. Sam McAlister also started in the front row in Rounds Three and Five against the Tweed Heads Seagulls and Ipswich Jets respectively.

2021 also saw Sam McAlister play for Gold Coast based Marymount College including in the Titans Cup and Confraternity Shield School Boy Competitions.

In the Titans Cup Boys Year 11/12 Division competition, Sam McAlister had a big match against Aquinas College with Sam McAlister scoring a second half double off the bench in a big Marymount College victory.

Sam McAlister’s opening try come in the 32nd minute when he charged over from eight metres out from a straight run to the left of the dummy half with Sam McAlister getting the ball down with two Aquinas College defenders hanging off him seven metres to the right of the uprights.

Sam McAlister completed his double just four minutes later in the 36th minute when he crashed over under the posts from five metres out after receiving the ball two passes off the play the ball that had occurred to his left.

From a club rugby league perspective in 2021, Sam McAlister played for the Burleigh Bears in the GCRL U16 Division One competition, including starting the Grand Final against the Southport Tigers in the front row.

In the 2021 Gold Coast Rugby League U16 Division One Grand Final Sam McAlister could not have gotten in the match earlier than he did when he was involved in the opening tackle of the match after Burleigh had kicked off to get the Grand Final underway. Sam McAlister also made a strong tackle from Burleigh’s second kick-off of the Grand Final after Southport’s opening try.

Sam McAlister’s opening hit-up of the Grand Final came in the 4th minute of the match when he hit-up brought the ball out of his own twenty metre area. Perhaps Sam McAlister’s best hit-up of the Grand Final came in the 7th minute when after receiving the ball off the dummy half to the right of the play the ball twenty metres from the line, Sam McAlister bustled his way to within two metres of the try line and directly in front of the right goal post before his forward momentum was finally stopped.

Running with the football, Sam McAlister has good footwork prior to the line and does not often just put his head down and run straight but uses his solid footwork to try to work the gaps between defenders rather than trying to simply trying to run over them.

Sam McAlister does not have great speed off the mark or necessary great high end speed, but he will work hard and make the most of his ability. Sam McAlister actually does have a decent off load when he has impacted the defensive line as well when the opportunity presents.

Defensively Sam McAlister is not a big hitter, usually aiming for just under the ribs and first intention is to lock up the ball to prevent offloads. One area where is quite effective whether he is defending on the fringes of the ruck or in the centre of the ruck including when Sam McAlister is defending at marker, is against smaller attackers who look to use their foot work.

Sam McAlister has quite reasonable lateral mobility for a front row forward and due to the fact that he also is not that tall, usually is able to wrap up the smaller attackers without his tackles slipping up to around the head or neck region.

2022 will see Sam McAlister will play for the Burleigh Bears MM Cup side and is also MM Cup eligible in 2023. At the competition of the 2022 MM Cup competition Sam McAlister will line up for the Burleigh Bears U18 Division One side and will also continue to play for Marymount College in the Titans Cup and Confraternity Shield School Boy competitions.

Sam McAlister has played the majority of his junior and school bout rugby league career to date in the front row and whilst he is certainly not the biggest front rower running around, Sam McAlister with his high work rate and determination there is a more than reasonable opportunity that Sam McAlister to stay in the front row long term.

From an NRL player comparison perspective for Sam McAlister, consider how Melbourne Storm and Queensland State of Origin front rower Christian Welch plays. Like Welch, Sam McAlister is an all effort type of player, who will make the occasional error, but makes up for them with non-stop hard work and effort.

Like Welch Sam McAlister is never going to be a flashy type of player, but to be sure every successful team needs at least one player like Sam McAlister in their forward pack to do a lot of the heavy and dirty work which eases the pressure for the other forwards in the team.

[mdrew]

Dallas Ingram. In late January 2022 after signing a multi-year contract with the Titans, Dallas Ingram started from the bench for the Titans U16 side in a trial match at Pizzey Park against a Sydney Bulldogs U16 squad for his first of likely many matches in Titans colours.

The electric young halfback hails from the Darling Downs and plays his club rugby league for Toowoomba Valleys, in 2021 in the Toowoomba Rugby League U14 competition. A team mate in that 2021 Toowoomba Valleys U14 side was fellow 2022 Titans signing Ryan Johnson.

Dallas Ingram’s first taste of representative rugby league came in 2019 when he represented Darling Downs at the Queensland U12 Primary School Boy Rugby League Championships. From there Dallas Ingram was selected as captain for the Queensland White side for the National Championships with Queensland White defeating Queensland Maroon 16 – 10 in the Championship Final.

Dallas Ingram in 2019 has also represented the Cooks Islands in relation to representative rugby league in the U12 age group.

Dallas Ingram is a multi-sport athlete and has also excelled in rugby and boxing with Dallas Ingram already winning Queensland Boxing Championships and Gold Glove Championships.

It is hard to put in words just how talented Dallas Ingram is in terms of running the ball, he has outstanding speed both off the mark which I would consider in the plus plus category and top end speed which must be considered plus regardless of position. Dallas Ingram with his speed is able to exploit even small gaps in the defensive line with an exceptional step off either foot and incredible acceleration as well as outstanding body control.

It is that speed trait which opens up his incredible ball playing skills as well. Teams start to focus heavily on Dallas Ingram when he has the ball with outside defenders looking to come in to assist that they open up holes wider out in the defensive line that Dallas Ingram can exploit.

Dallas Ingram has exquisite timing on his passes and is able to weight them perfectly as well and can do so from either side of his body. Adding in this is that Dallas Ingram can stop on a dime even travelling at full speed and pop the short pass, thus it looks for all money that he is going to run the ball thus the defence converges and then the ball is delivered to a support runner who is through a hole before the defensive line can readjust.

Dallas Ingram also runs with the ball in both hands which is another reason why the defensive line is unable to determine exactly what Dallas Ingram is going to do. If Dallas Ingram sees a gap he is through it before the defensive line can react also when a forward takes the ball up through the centre of the ruck, Dallas Ingram is always in support and if he gets an off load he can accelerate through the resultant gap.

Dallas Ingram does not necessarily have a big step but has an outstanding swerve which he uses when confronted with the fullback. Dallas Ingram will run directly at the fullback to slow his lateral momentum and then swerve around him the second the fullback’s momentum stops or slows.

Like when he has the ball in his hands, there is nothing that Dallas Ingram cannot do in relation to kicking the ball. Dallas Ingram is an exceptional tactical kicker with range and accuracy, he can put up pin point bombs and perfectly weighted grubber kicks into the in goal. In short if you can name a type of rugby league kick, Dallas Ingram can execute it with precision.

Defensively Dallas Ingram is a very strong young man with exceptional functional strength to go along with an innate understanding of the attacking strategies of rugby league thus he is able to anticipate what an attacking side is looking to do with the ball and then be in the best position to negate it.

As a defender, like his attack due to his smaller size, Dallas Ingram relies on his speed, timing and solid technique. Dallas Ingram has a very good low tackling technique which is simple and repeatable and effective, including head placement against all size opponents and thus there is no need for a defensive minder on Dallas Ingram’s side of the field. In summary just like his attacking play Dallas Ingram is an outstanding defender for his size and position.

2022 will see Dallas Ingram line up for Toowoomba Valleys in the Toowoomba Rugby League U15 competition and Dallas Ingram will also push for selection in the Darling Downs U15 QSSRL School Boy Representative side.

With his speed off the mark, ability to put his runners through holes, direct his team around the field and his competitive and combative nature, Dallas Ingram is an ideal rugby league halfback and the more that Dallas Ingram has the ball in his hands the better for his team.

An NRL player comparison for Dallas Ingram proved to be an interesting exercise, but ultimately I believe an appropriate player comparison for Dallas Ingram is Penrith and New South Wales State of Origin half Nathan Cleary. Dallas Ingram is smaller and a lot quicker (especially off the mark) than Cleary but has the same type of intensity and will be win, game management and leadership attributes as the Panthers representative and Premiership half.

[mdrew]

Cooper Cracknell. The young Ipswich based front rower played his first match in Titans colours in December 2021 when he started in the front row for the Titans U14 JTS side in shockingly hot conditions.

Impressively in late 2021 Cooper Cracknell was selected in the 2022 Ipswich Jets Cyril Connell Cup competition even though he is still U15 eligible in 2022.

Cooper Cracknell played for Ipswich Brothers in 2021 in the Ipswich Rugby League U14 competition finishing as the competitions leading try scorer with seventeen tries and also finished as the competitions leading points scorer.

Cooper Cracknell started in the front row and captained the Ipswich Brothers side in their 32 – 24 Grand Final victory over the Springfield Panthers with Cooper Cracknell scoring a try and kicked four goals in a Player of the Match performance.

In addition to his Grand Final try Cooper Cracknell scored hat tricks in Round Six against Laidley, Round Twelve against Lowood and Round Fourteen against Goodna, Cooper Cracknell also scored a double in Round Three against Fassifern.

Cooper Cracknell also scored in Round Three against Fassifern, Round Seven against Goodna, Round Nine against Norths, Round Ten against Fassifern and Brothers semi-final victory against Lowood.

From a goal kicking perspective Cooper Cracknell kicked five goals in Round Two against Norths Blue, Cooper Cracknell also scored two tries in the Round Two match in finish with eighteen points.

Cooper Cracknell also kicked three goals against Fassifern in Round Three, Laidley in Round Six and Lowood in Round Twelve. The match against Lowood saw Cooper Cracknell score a hat trick as well with Cooper Cracknell scoring all eighteen of Ipswich Brothers points in the match.

From a school boy perspective Cooper Cracknell attends Ipswich State High School as part of their Rugby League Excellence Program.

Also in 2021 Cooper Cracknell played in the U14 Greater Brisbane Junior Rugby competition for the Ipswich Rangers including starting at inside centre (No. 12) in the Rangers Grand Final victory against Sunnybank Green with Cooper Cracknell kicking three conversions in the Grand Final victory.

In 2019 Cooper Cracknell was named in the Queensland U12 Rugby League side for his first taste of representative rugby league.

Cooper Cracknell is a hard running player who never seems to just put his head down and runs straight, he always uses a slight step prior to contacting the defensive line, coupled with the fact that he drops his shoulder into defenders, means that he is a bit of a handful to tackle and he is not often knocked back onto his heals. He is also good at maintaining his momentum after impacting the defensive line.

Cooper Cracknell has a huge high work rate and I would suggest that he would normally be at or near the top of his team’s statistics in terms of the number of hit ups he makes and on occasion runs a very good inside shoulder route to supplement his other attacking attributes. Cooper Cracknell does not off-load the ball much however and probably never be one based on how he asked to play the game.

Defensively Cooper Cracknell aims hits very hard and usually hits around the top of the ball region and is certainly someone opposing forwards look for when running the ball up and is adept at making sure the opposition do not get quick play the balls by using wrestling techniques well. This season Cooper Cracknell’s speed and mobility seemed to have increased and as a consequence he was better able to mirror the opposition attacker’s movement more effectively.

Cooper Cracknell will probably not make a large amount of hits that are going to knock opposing forwards backwards, but opposing forwards are going to feel everyone and start to look out for where he is in the defensive line.

2022 will see Cooper Cracknell play for Ipswich Brothers in the Ipswich Rugby League U15 competition after the completion of the 2022 U16 Cyril Connell Cup competition. It will also be interesting to see if Cooper Cracknell continues to play rugby for the Ipswich Rangers in the Greater Brisbane Junior Rugby U15 competition.

From a school boy perspective, Cooper Cracknell will continue to play for Ipswich State High School in the Walters Cup School Boy competition.

Cooper Cracknell is a big strong young man who has played essentially his entire junior rugby league career to date in the front row and I believe that he will stay in the same position that being in the front row going forward. I must admit however that towards the end of the 2021 my opinion of Cooper Cracknell’s ultimate position started to change and ever though Cooper Cracknell may end up in the front row, I believe that with his speed and mobility Cooper Cracknell should be given every opportunity to play in the second row.

Regardless of position Cooper Cracknell is one heck of a rugby league prospect and the Titans are very lucky to have him in their JTS Program.

Cooper Cracknell is a big strong tough rugby league front rower with a touch of aggressiveness in his game and therefore from an NRL player comparison perspective, for Cooper Cracknell would be Titans and Queensland State of Origin front rower Tino Fa’asuamaleaui as a front rower who will continue to take the ball up all day long and also be very effective at it as well and one who is a touch underrated defensively in terms of how hard his initial contact is in defence as well as his capacity to continually get back into the defensive line, set himself and move up to make the next tackle for long stretches.

[mdrew]

Ryan Johnson. In late January 2022 after signing a multi-contract with the Titans Ryan Johnson started from the bench for the Titans U16 side in a match at Pizzey Park against a Sydney Bulldogs U16 squad for his first match in Titans colours, with Ryan Johnson coming onto the field at halftime.

The young front rower hails from the Darling Downs and plays his club rugby league for Toowoomba Valleys, in 2021 in the Toowoomba Rugby League U14 competition. A team mate in that 2021 Toowoomba Valleys U14 side was fellow 2022 Titans signing Dallas Ingram.

Ryan Johnson’s first taste of representative rugby league came in 2019 when he represented Darling Downs at the Queensland U12 Primary School Boy Rugby League Championships. From there Ryan Johnson was selected in the Queensland White side for the National Championships with Queensland White defeating Queensland Maroon 16 – 10 in the Championship Final.

Running with the ball, Ryan Johnson has good footwork prior to the line and does not often just put his head down and run straight but uses his solid footwork to try to work the gaps between defenders rather than trying to simply run over them. Ryan Johnson does reasonably decent speed off the mark and that assists in his ability to hit the defensive line hard and with pace.

Ryan Johnson does not have another gear once through the defensive line but continues to pump his legs and fights for every metre. Ryan Johnson has decent off load when he has impacted the defensive line as well.

The key to his running is that Ryan Johnson stays low and does not present himself to be an easy target for defences and will drop his shoulder into the defensive line, but Ryan Johnson’s all out running style does mean he can fatigue reasonably quacking but regardless he can be absolutely devastating. Ryan Johnson is also adept at getting his right hand free to off load when the opportunity presents itself.

Defensively Ryan Johnson hits very hard and usually aims for around the area where the upper edge of the ball is carried. Ryan Johnson defends in the centre of the ruck and seems best suited in the long run defending there and adds a degree of intimidation to any forward pack he plays for. Ryan Johnson really does know how to tackle effectively, as he sets a strong base to create the necessary leverage to defend against larger forwards.

2022 will see Ryan Johnson line up for Toowoomba Valleys in the Toowoomba Rugby League U15 competition and Ryan Johnson will also push for selection in the Darling Downs U15 QSSRL School Boy Representative side.

Ryan Johnson has played the majority of his career in the front row, certainly exclusively there over the last few two years on the Darling Downs/Toowoomba region and with his size, wrestling and overall power that is where Ryan Johnson will stay in relation to rugby league.

From a player comparison perspective for Ryan Johnson, I would suggest a perfect match from a playing style perspective would be Melbourne Storm, New Zealand Test Captain and recent Redcliffe Dolphins 2023 Jesse Bromwich as a hard running and hard tackling forward.

Every time I have seen him play Ryan Johnson has stood out as an intense hard working player who just has something about him which suggests that he has a huge amount of untapped potential.

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Luke Jones. The young man from the Sawtell Panthers Junior Rugby League club in Northern New South Wales has deservedly signed a multi-year contract with the Titans and as a result Luke Jones is moving up to the Gold Coast to attend the Titans Partnered Palm Beach Currumbin State High School as part of his official contract with the Gold Coast Titans.

In 2021 Luke Jones played for the Sawtell Panthers in the Group Two U14 Junior rugby League competition, operating primarily at lock. In fact Luke Jones has been a Sawtell Panthers junior since starting in the Panthers U6 team nine years ago.

Luke Jones first taste of representative rugby league came in 2019 when he represented the New South Wales U12 Primary School Rugby League side from Toormina Public School.

Luke Jones has also represented New South Wales in Rugby and also is an outstanding representative level swimmer (with little or no formal swimming training) and is also a Toormina High School Cross Country and Athletics Age Champion.

Luke Jones is a strong, powerful runner of the ball and once he has generated momentum he is very difficult to stop and regularly has been able to drag defenders with him after initial contact has been made, thus making significant post contact metres.

Once he is in space, Luke Jones actually has very good top end speed, I would consider it above average when analysing his speed from a rugby league forward’s perspective, to add to the difficulties for the defensive line, Luke Jones runs with a high knee lift and also has a powerful right hand fend.

Defensively the most impressive aspect of Luke Jones’s play is his ability to make effective tackle after effective tackle. For the Sawtell Panthers in the 2021 Group Two U14 competition Luke Jones continually made up to three and four tackles in a row on multiple occasions.

Whilst his stamina is impressive, so is Luke Jones’s initial contact, he uses his strength and leverage to hit the ball carrier hard forcing momentum changes to the ball carrier immediately upon impact from Luke Jones.

Luke Jones is also adept at wrapping up the ball and preventing offloads as he uses his functional strength to engage ball carriers. Defensively in a covering role he is also very effective as even though he is a big strong forward Luke Jones has very good catch up speed and a solid low tackling technique from a side aspect.

2022 sees Luke Jones move up to the Gold Coast and in addition to playing his school boy rugby league for PBC State High School, he will play in the Gold Coast Rugby League U15 Division One competition as well as push for a sport in the U15 QSSRL South Coast School Boy Rugby League Representative side.

Luke Jones is a tall rangy young man with outstanding speed and mobility and whilst he was played the majority of his rugby league career at lock, I believe that his best position long term is in the second row where Luke Jones can look to exploit size and speed mis-matches on the fringes of the ruck.

Luke Jones is an intriguing and in some ways unique prospect in the Titans JTS Program and catchment area with the size, speed and power combination of someone like Penrith Panthers and New South Wales State of Origin’s Isiah Yeo as a player who just looks a class apart from the majority of other players on the field. If anything Luke Jones has more speed (a fair bit more speed to be fair) than Yeo.

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Toran O’Donnell. The PBC State High School youngster had a strong 2021 season for the PBC State High School Hancock Cup School Boy Rugby League side and was also a 2021 PBC SHS Rugby League Award winner.

In late 2021 Toran O’Donnell was named in the Tweed Heads Seagulls U16 Cyril Connell Cup squad and was part of the Seagulls side that played their first trial of 2022 when he lined up at Pizzey Park against the Northern Rivers Titans U18 Laurie Daley Cup squad on the Titans “Super Saturday”.

Toran O’Donnell was initially not named in the game day seventeen for Round One of the 2022 Cyril Connell Cup against the Burleigh Bears but on the morning of the match came onto the Seagulls bench. The young forward came off the bench and into the match in the second row around the forty minute mark.

As a result of his strong performance off the bench in Round One, Toran O’Donnell moved into the starting side at right second row for Round Two against the Redcliffe Dolphins and after a Round Three bye Toran O’Donnell continued at right second row in Round Four against the Easts Tigers, however in the second half Toran O’Donnell also spent time on the left side of the field.

Toran O’Donnell moved to left second row in the final round being Round Five against the Wynnum Manly Seagulls and in the 15th minute Toran O’Donnell executed a great try saving tackle on the Wynnum Manly halfback who had split the Seagulls defensive line from around ten metres out but Toran O’Donnell willed himself to his left to make the tackle.

Toran O’Donnell an old style, hardworking, effective forward. He is just solid at all aspects and also has good size for a forward and has the physical attributes to add more muscle mass without compromising his speed, lateral movement or aerobic endurance at all.

Toran O’Donnell is a hard working forward who understands how to run the right the right line including both and inside shoulder and outside shoulder line and consistently hits the pass off either the dummy half or play maker flat thus generating his best possible speed and momentum to hit the defensive line.

Where Toran O’Donnell really excels though is his footwork, he has very good late and quick foot work which enables him to change direction quickly allowing him to readjust where he is running to take advantage of either a late developing hole in the defensive line or where the defensive line is repositioning late.

Even when he is taking a hit up in the centre of the ruck, Toran O’Donnell’s feet are always moving and he is constantly making slight corrections to his running direction and he is also able to maintain his speed regardless of the multiple directional changes.

Toran O’Donnell also excels is his ability to generate quick play the balls. Toran O’Donnell fights to get to his feet quickly and then executes the quick play the ball whilst the opposition defensive lines is still resetting.

Toran O’Donnell’s defensive technique revolves around timing and execution. Toran O’Donnell’s head is always correctly positioned and he always drives with his shoulder and never just jersey grabs. From the matches that I have seen Toran O’Donnell also tackles with both shoulders effectively as well.

The impressive thing for me also is that Toran O’Donnell never seems to bounce off the ball when he makes a front on tackle meaning his target area and the ability to hit the area on a regular basis is very impressive.

In 2022 Toran O’Donnell will move up to the PBC State High School Walters Cup School Boy Rugby League side where no doubt he will continue to excel and develop his game to the next level at the Titans Partnered School. Being part of the 2022 PBC Langer Cup Open A or B squad is also not out of the question for Toran O’Donnell in 2022.

Toran O’Donnell played exclusively in the second row in the 2022 Cyril Connell Cup competition and with his hard working mentality, that is where Toran O’Donnell’s future in rugby league lies.

Toran O’Donnell is not the type of second rower who is going to break through the defensive line and run eighty metres to score, but he will outwork practically anyone else on the field in both attack and defence and thus has a playing style akin to that of Newcastle Knights second rower Mitchell Barnett, well the version that does not sent off.

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Titus Marsden. The Helensvale Hornets local Gold Coast junior had an outstanding 2021 season that culminated in the young man being named the 2021 Gold Coast Rugby League U15 Player of the Season. An impressive feat considering the exceptional strength of that competition on the Gold Coast in 2021.

In October 2021 Titus Marsden was named in the talented Tweed Heads Seagulls U16 Cyril Connell Cup squad and Titus Marsden was involved in the Seagulls first trial of 2022 when Tweed Heads took on the Northern Rivers Titans U18 Laurie Daley Cup squad at Pizzey Park.

Round One of the 2022 U16 Cyril Connell Cup saw Titus Marsden named on the bench for the Tweed Heads Seagulls against the Burleigh Bears however he was a game day scratching.

Titus Marsden was also named on the bench for Round Two against the Redcliffe Dolphins and after a Round Three bye Titus Marsden moved to the right wing for Round Four against the Easts Tigers, a match that saw Titus Marsden make a line break down the right wing in the e37th minute when he was able to make around twenty metres before being taken into touch less than ten metres from the try line.

Titus Marsden also was named to start on the right wing in Round Five against the Wynnum Manly Seagulls however in a late positional switch Titus Marsden in fact started the match at fullback and could not have been in the match any earlier when the Wynnum Manly kick-off dropped short, Titus Marsden did a great job diving forward to take the kick-off on the full.

In late 2021 Titus Marsden was named as a stand-by for the Coomera Chiefs Oztag side for the 2022 Queensland U16 Junior State Cup.

The young man is very difficult to stop once he is in motion, his speed, power and body height all contribute to this. On the wing when Titus Marsden can wind up and build momentum he looks to run over his direct opponent rather than try to run around them. In fact in the majority of occasions it is Titus Marsden that actually initiates the contact and I do not recall seeing a player being able to run over his direct opponent with absolutely no loss of momentum.

From a speed perspective I would argue that Titus Marsden’s speed is a tick above average for a winger but obviously the key attribute from an attacking perspective is how hard he hits the defensive line. Like his overall speed Titus Marsden’s lateral mobility is probably just a tick above average. Titus Marsden, with his size and strength is also able to make a lot of ground after contact with his ability to absorb the defensive contact and maintain his balance and body control.

When he is close to the line Titus Marsden is able to absorb a significant amount of punishment and still hold his running line thus he is able to score close to the side line without being pushed over the sideline regardless of the number of defenders looking to do so. The ability to absorb contact is on display when Titus Marsden comes into the centre of the ruck to take the ball up into the teeth of the defensive line.

Defensively for a big strong powerful young man, Titus Marsden actually has good discipline for such a young player and in the main stays on his man rather than coming in and looking for the big hit. Do not get me wrong he will on occasion aim to smash the opposing outside if they do not see him coming but in the main he is quite disciplined and looks to ensure his opposing winger does not get on his outside looking to use their speed against him.

2022 will see Titus Marsden continue to play for the Helensvale Hornets in the GCRL U16 Division One competition and Titus Marsden will also line up for the Tweed Heads Seagulls in the South East Queensland U16 Cyril Connell Cup Representative Competition looking to start the 2022 season off on a positive note.

Titus Marsden’s best position in the long term is an interesting one, he most likely ends up on the wing, but Titus Marsden may well be able to maintain a spot in the centres, for the next couple of seasons at least.

For me Titus Marsden has a playing style similar to that of now Titans and former Brisbane Broncos and New Zealand International winger or fullback Jamayne Isaako, both are big and strong (Isaako is a bit bigger physically though) but also outstanding talents who with time, patience and experience could be just about anything on a rugby league field if things fall just right.

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Marouna Savage. The former Titans linked young man played a match or two for the Titans Development Squad in 2020.

In October 2021 Marouna Savage was named in the powerful Burleigh Bears U16 Cyril Connell Cup squad with Marouna Savage being named on the bench for the Bears first 2022 trail against local rivals, the Tweed Heads Seagulls.

Marouna Savage was part of the 2019 Gold Coast Vikings U13 Representative Team that took part in the U13 South East Queensland Hill Stumer Championships, coming off the bench in the majority of the Vikings matches in Ipswich.

Marouna Savage’s first taste of representative rugby league came in 2017 when he was part of the Met West U11 side that won the Vic Jensen Cup with Marouna Savage scoring a try in the Final and was named as Player of the Match as Met West defeated South Coast 28 – 12 in Bundaberg.

With the ball Marouna Savage is a very good distributor and will take the ball to the line in an effort to set up his supports. Marouna Savage is particularly adept at using the short or blind side when he sees an opportunity to exploit an overlap or a tired forward resting there.

Marouna Savage will back his judgement and take the game on, assisting his play is the fact that he makes the decision what to do with the ball quickly thus enabling the ball to get out wide quickly. Marouna Savage has decent speed off the mark and quite a good step off both feet as well as a good swerve.

Marouna Savage reads the play well from a defensive perspective and can hold his own when defending much bigger players. When confronted with forwards running directly at him on the edge of the ruck, Marouna Savage will get in front of them and use his shoulder in an effort to contain them until defensive help arrives.

Aiding this is the fact that Marouna Savage has a decent, simple and repeatable low tackling technique which enables him to bring down opposing forwards quite quickly thus negating the time they have to off load the ball.

Marouna Savage will play the 2022 rugby league season with the Burleigh Bears in the Gold Coast Rugby League U16 Division One competition and will also line up for PBC State High School in their various school boy rugby league competitions in South East Queensland as well as playing for the Burleigh Bears in the South East Queensland U16 Cyril Connell Cup competition to get the 2022 season underway.

Marouna Savage can both organise a team and manage their movement around the field but he can also run the ball if and opportunity presents itself and thus Marouna Savage’s best position both now and likely into the future is at halfback.

With his ability to size up a situation and make a quick decision whether to run or pass, Marouna Savage reminds me of current Canberra Raider and former Titan Jamal Fogerty. Like Fogerty, Marouna Savage is a solid all round player who makes good things happen for his team when he is around the ball.

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Tevita Tau’aalo. The young centre burst onto the scene in 2021 as part of the Tweed Heads Seagulls U16 Cyril Connell Cup squad.

In Round One of the 2022 Gold Coast Rugby League U18 Division One competition Tevita Tau’aalo started from the bench for the Ormeau Shearers against the Helensvale Hornets.

In 2021 for the Tweed Heads Seagulls Cyril Connell Cup side Tevita Tau’aalo started all three matches at centre, being Round One against the Ipswich Jets, Round Three against the Burleigh Bears and Round Five against the Souths Logan Magpies. Tevita Tau’aalo scored one try on those three matches which was in fact the Seagulls first try of the 2022 competition and came in the 7th minute of the match Round One match against the Ipswich Jets.

Big strong and powerful are the words that immediately come to mind when watching Tevita Tau’aalo play. From an attacking perspective Tevita Tau’aalo is a straight hard runner when he has the ball in hand.

Tevita Tau’aalo has shown the ability to run both an inside and outside shoulder route and he runs both with pace and power and attracts multiple defenders to try to stop him. When Tevita Tau’aalo impacts the defensive line he drops his shoulder into the defenders and regularly bumped off multiple defenders in a single run thus making multiple post contact metres.

Tevita Tau’aalo has a vicious tackling style and he really looks to come out of the line and literally smash his opposite number on a regular basis. Tevita Tau’aalo does however have decent lateral mobility which enables him to readjust if his opposite number gets on the outside and Tevita Tau’aalo, once he gets moving have above average straight line speed which enables him to close the distance to the attacker.

Tevita Tau’aalo will play the 2022 with the Ormeau Shearers in the Gold Coast Rugby League U18 Division One competition and is also U18 eligible in 2023, a year where no doubt Tevita Tau’aalo will push for a sport in either the Tweed Heads Seagulls or Burleigh Bears MM Cup squads.

When you have a junior player with Tevita Tau’aalo’s combination of skill, size, speed and power you give them every chance to stay in the centres and I have no doubt that there is a big opportunity for Tevita Tau’aalo to stay in the centre long term.

With his size, speed and power Tevita Tau’aalo’s playing style is not dis-similar to that of standout Penrith Panther rookie NRL centre Izac Tago, both just ooze class and potential and just have something about them when you watch them play.