The best place to be in Queensland this week had to be Warwick.
A town that has experienced more than its fair share of hardship this year, the region played host to the Queensland Maroons on Tuesday and Wednesday for their annual fan day, in an event that boosted spirits everywhere.
After being hit with floodwaters in May, rain was the last thing anyone wanted to see, but it did little to deter people from turning out to see their footy heroes.
I was lucky enough to be in town for the fan days and I have to say the Origin team were unreal.
The weather was cold and rainy, but they still did everything on the agenda. They wouldn’t baulk because of the conditions and were very committed to the community.
And the community responded in kind.
When I arrived in Warwick, I immediately noticed that a lot of shops had done up their windows for the Maroons. A number of hotels were completely booked out and almost 300 juniors had registered for the coaching clinic.
More than 3000 then turned out for the street parade on Wednesday in drizzly conditions.
It was evident the Warwick community were very excited for what this fan day was bringing to town.
This initiative every year has a lot of positive effects for whatever region hosts it, and after speaking to a Warwick Cowboys committee member, it was clear the same happened again this year.
This member told me about the water that went through the club this year and how much it really drained their funds.
The work around recovery falls back to a certain number of people at these clubs – both the Cowboys and the junior sides around town – so for the Origin team to come in and pick up the spirits, it’s fantastic.
All the concerns were able fade into the background for a minute while the Origin team was here.
And the trip also provided the Queensland Rugby League and Queensland Maroons the opportunity to raise money for grassroots footy in the area – I hear the funds raised so far are up over $16,500.
That is excellent work by everyone involved.
I also think I can safely say that those who attended all the events over the two days are convinced the players will put absolutely everything on the line on Wednesday when they play New South Wales in the Origin decider at Suncorp Stadium.
It was a tremendous event and it always is.
Elsewhere this week in the Central region, we will see the Jason Hetherington Gary Larson Cup in Gladstone this Friday and Saturday.
In a really exciting stat for the carnival, we are seeing record numbers this year with 46 teams taking part. There will be 203 games played and 874 participants.
It is played under our Player Development Framework with no points taken and no winners of age groups.
The teams are here to just enjoy playing rugby league – they play purely for the love of the game rather than facing that pressure to win all the time.
That enjoyment of it flows from the players onto their coaching staff and parents. We see a lot less ill-feeling coming from off-field in regards to events like these.
Everyone gets into the carnival atmosphere.
We also saw that with the Rees Orman City Country Cultural Exchange in Coolum at the end of June.
We had some lopsided teams at times and in one match between the Sunshine Coast and St George, Sunny Coast lent some players to an undermanned St George and it turned into a great contest.
There was similar sportsmanship and spirit seen at our Under 17 Girls Central Region Carnival in Toowoomba last week and at our Toowoomba Rugby League mid-year finals – the Madsen Rasmussen for A Grade and the President’s Cup for women’s, reserve grade and the under 19s.
With our under 17 girls, they had to play in extremely testing conditions – it was freezing cold, raining, and towards the end of the Friday games, we had a mist come in which made visibility tough.
But they all played right through every challenge and played in the right spirit.
We also had Central wellbeing operations manager Ryan Charles come in to talk about several topics with the players, which was well-received.
While the on-field action was important, so is the off field and I know the girls would have left the weekend with some friends for life.
The Toowoomba mid-year finals meanwhile had top class footy.
I was particularly impressed with the quality of the women’s A Grade match, which once again showed the strength of the female game in our region.
It took a long time to get it going but the players are coming out of the woodwork and the talent is shining through.
