Things are going smoothly for Sunshine Coast's Smoothy

Despite suffering a slight hiccup against the unfancied Ipswich Jets in their last match, the Sunshine Coast Falcons Hastings Deering Colts side are aiming high this season and a key player who would like to see them go all the way is Jai Smoothy.

“As a club, considering I will be training with the Cup side the majority of the year and playing Colts, I would like to see both teams make finals at least and make a good solid push to make the GF… I think the squads are there in both sides to do so,” Smoothy said.

“I think we took last year as a bit of a disappointment (in Colts), because we looked at our team and we thought we 100 per cent had the team to win it, so when we ended up getting knocked out - I think it’s a good achievement to make it there (to the finals) - but this year we want to go a couple steps further.”

As the younger brother of Tyson Smoothy, who claimed player of the match honours when the Falcons were crowned the competition’s premiers in 2019, Smoothy said he was drawing inspiration from his talented sibling who has excelled in recent years in the number nine jersey.

“All last year for the Colts I was playing hooker, but this pre-season, I have trained a bit of hooker and half,” Smoothy, who has been named at halfback for this weekend’s match against Brisbane Tigers, said.

“My main (position) would probably be hooker, but I have welcomed the role training at half because we have had a couple of boys go down with injury in that position, so they have put me in there.

“All through my juniors at Kawana I was playing halves, my brother kind of gave me the inspiration to switch positions to hooker and I started enjoying playing in the middle, but it’s good having the versatility to play in multiple positions.”

In his final year with the Colts, Smoothy did his pre-season with the Cup side and would like to add to his tally of one Cup game this year.

On a personal level, Smoothy, who is doing an apprenticeship in cabinet making, said playing Cup with his brother was a major goal this year.

“For personal goals, I want to get a few – I made my debut last year for Cup, but I’d like to get a couple more games in and I haven’t ever played a game of footy with Tyson my brother, so hopefully down the track this year I will be able to get a game with him, that would be good,” Smoothy said.

Sporting talent runs in the family and while for the most part the Smoothy clan are a rugby league family, his other brother Hayden has made his home in Aussie Rules, which can make for some interesting banter.

“We were originally from Toowoomba and my dad played a bit up there, but coming down here, it’s pretty much ran through my family, from my granddad to my dad, now my brother plays it, but my older brother plays (Aussie Rules), so there’s always been a bit of a sport gene going through, (but) there’s a bit of small beef going on between me and Tyson and my older brother,” Smoothy said.

However, he also supports them in developing their skills, including diversifying their kicking technique.

“(He plays with) Maroochydore … he pretty much taught me and Tyson the different ways, the technique of holding the footy and the different ways to kick it and ball drop and all of that, he’s helped a lot in my kicking game,” Smoothy said.

The Sunshine Coast Falcons will face Brisbane Tigers in Round 6 of the Hastings Deering Colts competition at Sunshine Coast Satdium this weekend.