By TANIA PHILLIPS
KINGSCLIFF Primary school’s Rugby Union side has finished third in the state, with only the eventual winners able to beat them.
The boys, who played in the finals despite being away on their annual Canberra excursion, went down 19-5 in the semi final, according to coach Simon Prichard.
“It was a big mission for the boys as we were on the Canberra excursion and had to leave Canberra at 4am, drive to Sylvania in Sydney and play to see who became champions,” he said of the Wednesday games.
The boys had already travelled all the way to Canberra on Sunday night-Monday morning to be part of the excursion.
They drove straight back to Canberra after their games to resume their school trip – heading to the snow the next day before making the bus trip home to Kingscliff on Thursday night-Friday morning.
“First, the boys played Newport (the eventual winners) and lost that 19-5,” Mr Prichard said.
“It was a hard ground out game against a very well drilled and highly skilled team. We also lost Jesse Grey (five-eighth) and Koro Wharekawa (centre) early in the game and found it hard to fight back.
“Our second game was played against Edgeworth. This was a playoff for third in NSW. Here, the boys rallied and played outstanding to win 40-0. It was an amazing effort.
Blake Neka scored a hat-trick and was amazing in defence. It was a man-of-the-match performance.”
Mr Prichard said it capped off a remarkable year on the sporting field for the school.
“Kingscliff primary also made it to the final eight in the state for netball,” he said.
“Another outstanding achievement this year was that we won the District swimming, cross country and athletics carnivals in the area.”
