A new Mount Isa Junior touch rugby program is in its sixth week, with the grand final set for Thursday November 23 at Kruttschnitt Oval.
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Elite player for Queensland, Ashleigh Burke, started the program with Sharon Salmon and Mount Isa Touch Association (MITA) committee members to give juniors their own competition.
“We’ve had juniors going for the last two years, but this year the committee decided to do an actual comp where teams play each other, similar to basketball, rugby, and other sports here,” Salmon said.
The competition has four Under 12s teams, three Under 9s, and 20 players in the Under 6s, who learn skills and drills instead of playing full games.
Mount Isa touch players and rep players have taken on the job of coaching the teams, and a group of under 16 players have been coming down to ref the games.
As well as playing for Mount Isa and Queensland elite teams, Burke is also coaching one of the under 12 teams.
"It’s gone really well, we’ve had to include more teams, we’ve had to include extra coaches,” Burke said.
“The initial response was really good but as the comp got a bit of a roll on we had to include another full Under 12s team, and our Under 9s team is now chocka block.”
“Sports Power has made a killing on the new boots by the look of it,”
Salmon and Burke said they usually look at having nine players per team, but the Under 9s is up to 13 players, as are the Under 12s.
"The Under 12s are actually playing adult rules on adult sized fields,” Salmon said.
Any interested children can be involved in touch rugby in Mount Isa, they don’t have to play it at school.
“A lot of them have played in the last two years, and come down to learn the skills and the drills,” Burke said.
“I think it comes down to a lot of the teachers and people associated with touch, getting into the schools and really promoting it.”
“If we do decide to keep going with a summer comp next year, which we hope to, we will put it out earlier. We didn’t get it out until after school holidays, which made it a bit harder. Word still got through the schools with teachers and teacher aides, and there are a lot of families so word spreads fast.”
The committee is putting on a sausage sizzle at the grand final, but there won’t be any trophies.
“We don’t want to focus too much on the competitive aspect, we want it to be fun,” Salmon said.
There are three rounds left in the competition, with the grand final on November 23 at Kruttschnitt Oval from 6pm.
Under 6s play from 6 to 6.35pm, then Under 9s and Under 12s play from 6.30pm.