Its been quite a year for the Keebra Park Opens Rugby League this year with both the current squad and past squad members achieving both individual and team goals. Its been a great season in the NRL for ex - program graduate Benji Marshall as he continues to showcase his extraordinary skills and talent at the elite level with the Wests Tigers and it has been a year where both he and another ex student, Jamaal Lolesi gained International status playing for New Zealand in the traditional ANZAC test against Australia. Greg Eastwood made his NRL debut with the Broncos and last years graduates, Rangi Chase, Sam Moa and Mufoa Filipe continue their rise through the Flegg and Premier league grades also with the Tigers in Sydney.

Another plus this year has been the outstanding performance throughout all the age group competitions where we played good, hard, structured football with the main aim being development not necessarily trophies. As a coaching staff we are happy that we achieved what we set out to achieve from a coaching perspective and that we have set the platform for the next years competitions.

The Opens had a particularly good season becoming Queensland State Champions and Australian National Finalists. The experience will be handy for future years and allowed us as a program to see where we were at in regards to our NSW peers. From this years open squad we will be retaining a large number of players and we must also wish our program graduates who will be playing in the Jersey Flegg Competition next year in Sydney “All the best”.

Herman Retzlaff, Dane Macdonald and Ben Teo will be heading South after graduation and we are sure the boys will do us proud.