Preview: Brisbane Premiership Final
Fri, 08 Aug 2008 10:51
Defending premiers Sunnybank have been forced to reorganise their backline for Sunday’s Queensland Premier club Final against Brothers at Ballymore, after star back Ben Lucas was forced out with a knee injury.
Sunnybank has been dominating all comers in recent weeks, highlighted by their 57-10 victory over GPS in last weekend’s knockout semifinal.
Losing inside centre Lucas means a call-up for Rob Lee, with wing speedster Karel Bos taking his place on the bench.
Brothers finished the season as Minor Premiers with their only regular season defeat coming at the hands of Sunnybank, but fell convincingly to Easts 32-16 last week.
Brothers have lost Reds and Wallaby hooker Sean Hardman and wing Paul Doneley to injury, but welcome back the elusive Damon Murphy from injury and back row forward Simon Price from suspension. They also have the super-competitive David Croft driving them on.
The game will be highlighted by a number of vital player match-ups, notably at scrumhalf where Brendan McKibbin and Sean Armstrong - arguably the two form No.9s in the competition – go head-to-head.
McKibbin has been Brothers best player all year, while Armstrong has been the launching pad for a potent Sunnybank backline featuring Reds stars Charlie Fetoai and Digby Ioane.
If Brothers lose they would suffer the same fate as last year’s Minor Premiers GPS, who lost the first semifinal and were then knocked out by Sunnybank in the preliminary Final.
Sunnybank then went on to defeat Gold Coast in the Grand Final by a record score of 85-19.
Teams:
Brothers: 15 Damon Murphy, 14 Angus McLean, 13 James Harvey, 12 Nathanuel Gendle, 11 Anthony Sauer, 10 Dallan Murphy, 9 Brendan McKibbin (captain), 8 Simon Price, 7 David Croft, 6 Andrew Shaw, 5 Liam Shaw, 4 Matt Dews, 3 Adrian Dixon, 2 Adam Bennie, 1 Dan Kilmartin.
Replacements:
16 Dugald Asprey, 17 Jordan Bennie, 18 Sean Ryan, 19 Jules McLaughlin, 20 Tom Collins, 21 Matt Anderton, 22 Anthony Pyers.
Sunnybank: 15 John Dart (captain), 14 Digby Ioane, 13 Charlie Fetoai, 12 Ben Lucas, 11 Junior Sovala, 10 Ben Gollings, 9 Sean Armstrong, 8 Sua Lilomaiava, 7 Stuart Killen, 6 Ewan McGregor, 5 Robert Simmons, 4 James Kriukelis, 3 Greg Holmes, 2 Joseph Tufuga, 1 Albert Anae.
Replacements: 16 Ben Fox, 17 Nathan Byrne, 18 Luke Billiau, 19 Richard Kingi, 20 Robert Lee, 21 Roy Saunders, 22 Rob Nowlan.
Date: Sunday, August 10
Venue: Ballymore, Brisbane
Kick-off: 15.00 (05.00 GMT)
Referee: Geoff Acton
Touch judges: Paul Marks, Stephen Hill
