There were a few stand out players including 15-year-old Ethan Roberts from Mount Isa, who was selected to play for Queensland.

The team included student players from Blackall, Barcaldine, Longreach, Winton, Mount Isa, Hughenden, and Cloncurry.

Twelve regions took part in the carnival and with only 228 players from all over Queensland, trainer Chris Waters said it was great just to get there.

“It’s a great achievement for our kids to even play at the carnival, because some regions have four or five hundred players trialing to make their squad of 19.”

Seven boys from Mount Isa and one boy from Cloncurry played at the carnival.

Waters said Ethan Roberts had been on the local radar for the last three years.

“Last year Ethan was in the North Queensland Marlins under 14s but he was also captain of the Queensland Outback under 14s,” he said.

“He performed extremely well last year at the 15 school boys as a 14 year old.”

Ethan’s father Mark Roberts said he has been training hard in the lead up to the carnival.

“This is what he believes his career should be, and he has been training very hard for the last 18 months,” Mr Roberts said.

“He’s in the gym six days a week plus his rugby league so he’s been training up especially for this tournament.”

Ethan was the only player selected from the North West team to play for Queensland national tournament in Woolongong on June 24.

Mr Roberts has been talking to several agents and talent scouts for some of the NRL clubs to further Ethan’s education and training.

North West election trials for the Queensland carnival were at Winton in early March and from that 14 players were selected from the North West.

They then invited other areas to fill the remaining five spots.

Waters said the team played well despite the challenges of distance and time.

“We are competitive at these carnivals for a period of time, but our biggest problem is our location – we’re drawing players from Blackall to Mount Isa and we arrive the day before and have a two hour training run.”

"That’s our only training session for the carnival. A lot of the other teams have training sessions and have also played a trial game.”

Waters said at any carnival the team plays best on their fourth day.

“We keep out strategy as basic as possible, because you’ve got players from across the region all at different levels,” he said.

Waters said it was his sixth under 15 school carnival.