Coach Chaperon said he imagined Kawana would bring worthy competition. They re a young team, young legs, and they come out firing pretty quickly in games…but I think they have issues seeing the game out, he said. The new coach said the biggest challenge would be having to adjust mid-match, as he was unaware of Kawana s game plan and new signings. For me, I need to analyse on the go. It ll be a case of getting out there on the pitch, identifying their strengths, their weaknesses, looking for areas to exploit and areas to be mindful of, he said. If we play to the best of our ability, I believe we can challenge any team in our division.
Operating on a shoestring budget, the incoming signings came predominantly from within Sunshine Coast Football circles.
New additions included Caloundraâs Ethan Galbraith and the returning Wanderer Josh Forshey, Noosaâs Mitch Bridge and the Jancevski brothers Chris and Andre, and Nambour Yandina Unitedâs Jacob Fulluck and Bailey Salisbury.
Key cog Danny Cuttler turned down a more lucrative move in Cardiff to remain on the Coast.
âThatâs what I tried to build here, with the local players,â coach Paul Arnison said.
âWe donât have the biggest budget compared to some other guys, so itâs important having local guys who really want to play for us.
Sunshine Coast and Districts Rugby Referees Association president Shaun McCormack, the state s top senior referee Zac Keenan, Sunshine Coast and Gympie Rugby League Referees Association president Vic Collins and rising AFL Sunshine Coast umpire Jake Edgar have all shared their thoughts. While agreeing crowd abuse wasn t getting worse, they said it was still a regular occurrence, more so at the junior levels of sport.
Here s what they said: Sunshine Coast official Zac Keenan was awarded Queensland s senior referee of 2020.
EXPERIENCES WITH CROWD ABUSE
Football Football Queensland s senior referee of 2020 Zac Keenan said he d been on the receiving end of abuse in the past, but found with the older and higher level matches it was less common.
“We’ve had a couple pre-season games already and it’s looking pretty good,” he said. “But, it (women’s carnival) is a good opportunity to see where we are at against teams who we will be coming up against in our league.
“It’ll be good to see where we are at but we’re also excited to play some different teams as well because we’ve got a few coming down from Gladstone, Wide Bay and Bribie so it’ll be a good array of teams to play against.”
He said ones to watch at the carnival from his team would be Sunshine Coast player of the year Kiara Rychvalsky, Kate Day and newcomer Tayhla Weire.
His appointment came after a tough year for the club in which they were forced to pull the pin on the season due to COVID-19 impacts. Woolfield got his maiden pre-season as Dolphins leader under way last month and has been quick to embrace high hopes for the team. I m loving it, he said. It s definitely a bit of a learning curve and I ve learned a lot in the limited amount of weeks that I ve been there. But I m just super happy with the recruitment we ve had, that helps obviously and all the lads are brilliant. He said early pre-season preparations had been coming along nicely.