Over the weekend just passed, over 20 AFL teams have competed on Oval 7 alone, with 6 UQAFC teams in action and 14 UQ College teams competing.
With so many players wanting to become a UQAFC Red Lion, Friday evening saw the unofficial “Fighting Fifths” turn up at Collingwood Park football club to play their second friendly against the local Div 4 side who preferred a practice game against our lads instead of their scheduled bye. A full UQ squad went down by a few goals to the CP Power lads who turned on a spectacular evening for the boys, even coaching some of those new to the game in the finer points of play during each quarter. Thanks to the Collingwood Park club for a great evening and thanks to Pete Rosengren for his efforts in organising these games.
Saturday saw the elite UQAFC Div 2 Seniors and Reserves at home to take on arch rivals Yeronga South Brisbane. The Ressies were certainly up and running to claim a comfortable win in a dominant display with the Seniors kicking a goal in the last minute to get ahead against their Oval 7 nemesis, only to have the ball go square to square for Yeronga to goal and deny the Seniors a last gasp win. The depth of talent in the senior sides is at a new level this year following a solid preseason, the leadership of senior coach Tim MacKinley and an injection of quality footballers over the summer.
On Sunday morning, 7 of the residential colleges on campus played round robin fixtures in the first ever AFL tournament as part of the Inter College Cup for 2012. AFL has not featured as a competitive sport previously in the ICC program with the Red Lions delighted to host this year’s event. Sunday afternoon saw our gallant U18 UQ Bulldogs face a strong Yeronga outfit after their debut game last weekend in the slush against Alex Hills. Despite losing key players to injuries the boys manned up all afternoon and look forward to a well earned week off this Sunday.
The biggest news of the weekend though happened Friday evening at Oval 7. More than 140 players from 7 college squads arrived to compete in the very first round robin AFL 9’s tournament at UQAFC’s hallowed turf at Oval 7. After three hours of soaring pack marks, bone crunching tackles, towering punts, blistering runs and a lot of laughs, all agreed it was the most fun they had enjoyed for a while. The most amazing sight? All 140 players were young ladies from the colleges on campus. Thanks to Waz, Justin Long, Prof Ross Barnard, Bing, Dan Cohen and Flash Gordon for their assistance over the busy weekend.
Next season is already looming as another year of firsts for the Red Lions with plans for an additional senior men’s side and the very first UQAFC Women’s XVIII to enter the SEQAFL Women’s competition.
We look forward to seeing you all at the club again soon.
Peter ‘Red’ Herring
President UQAFC
Red- Thanks for mentioning Bing ! She will be impressed. Sunday was mammoth, and much more sedate than the women’s comp. cheers, Ross