NQ United take the spoils over Qld Outback
Monday, July 18, 2016
Prior to the Intrust Super Cup match on Saturday there was Queensland Rugby League exhibition match between the QLD Outback and the NQ United (Northern Cape) teams.
NQ UNITED 64 (Daniel Mairu 3, Tim Oberlueter 3, Windsor Bowie 2, Gedi Dau, Isiah Wigness, Chastyn Bowen, William Blackman tries; Ishmael Soki 4, Windsor Bowie 3, Gresham Ross goals) def QUEENSLAND OUTBACK 18 (Brenton Stonier 2, Cody Steedman tries; James Baira 3 goals) at Townsville.
From the QRL Northern Division:
A bit of background on this game: All the Northern Cape players live in Weipa and play in the Cape Cluster which means they only play every 2 -3 weeks and have to travel for up to 7 hours on dirt roads just to play a game.Tupoa Mosby lives on Yorke Island and boats to Thursday Island every weekend which is an 8 hour round trip in a boat. Some others players live in Bamaga and others on Badu Island and have to boat for 2 hours one way to play the game of rugby league. All the Palm players live on Palm but travel over every weekend or when possible due to the weather to play rugby league.
The Outback team stretches with players from Mount Isa and Cloncurry all the way to Jarrod McIntosh who plays for the Tenterfield Tigers ( the clubs is based in NSW) but they play in the Border League along with teams like Stanthorpe. Jim Baira, brother of former Townsville Brothers player and current under 20s coach at Brothers Roy Baira, will debut for the Outback team in his first year after moving to Cloncurry.
For the past 2 years the game has been played on Thursday Island with both teams recording 2 point victories in the last few minutes of each game.
On Saturday NQ United ran away emphatic winners but it was match that was played in excellent spirit by both sides.
