Four of the best Under 14 school teams from the ‘Northern States’ of Australia will converge on Yeronga this Friday to decide the 2012 Northern States Cup.
Teams representing the Northern Territory, New South Wales/ACT and two from Queensland will play a round robin format of qualifying games on Friday to decide who will play the Grand Final and Consolation Final on Sunday.
This is the first time the championships have been held outside of Sydney in the five year history of the competition.
The home state will be represented by reigning premiers Palm Beach-Currumbin State High School from the Gold Coast, and competition newcomers Villanova College from Coorparoo.
PBC will be playing for their third Northern States Cup title in a row, after enjoying a season undefeated in Queensland’s Schools of Excellence Cup this year.
Villanova has also had a great season in their Associated Independent Colleges competition earlier this term, also undefeated, and went on to beat Wavell State High at the ‘Gabba and Narangba Valley State High School ‘Vipers’ in their Northern States Cup qualifier last month.
The Northern Territory’s Dripstone Middle School, from Darwin, will be back after also qualifying last year, finishing third in the 2011 Northern States Cup in Sydney. The Dripstone boys showed a lot of raw talent and exciting skills to the championships last year, and are sure to bring that same excitement to Brisbane.
New South Wales/ACT will be represented by Albury’s Xavier High School, and are sure to be very strong. Coming from the border with Victoria, the competition standard is very high and this team will no doubt provide tough competition for the rest of the field.
Games will start at 12:30pm Friday at Yeronga with Villanova taking on Dripstone in the first match, followed by PBC and Xavier. Each team will play the others once, with results deciding who will play in Sunday’s Consolation Final (3 v 4, 10:00am) and Grand Final (1 v 2, 12:00pm), also at Yeronga.
On Saturday, teams will enjoy a break from games and will spend time with the Hyundai Brisbane Lions Academy Saturday morning, participating in sessions on leadership, talent, yoga, and a tour of the Lions’ facility. Teams will then head to South Bank for lunch followed by aquatic recovery sessions at Streets Beach, in preparation for Sundays’ finals.
You can follow results live on Twitter by following @AFLSchools, whilst results will also be updated online via our website www.aflq-new.fspdev.com under the SCHOOL section, ‘Fixtures and Results’.
