COREY Manicaros celebrates his selection in the State CHS rugby league side with a NRL GIO Schoolboys Cup clash in Newcastle today and then an AAMI Country Championship campaign with the Greater Northern Tigers in Muswellbrook this weekend.
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The Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School Year 12 student won his State CHS berth with some impressive displays for Greater Western in last week’s State CHS Trials at Myuna Bay, Toronto.
Today he spearheads his Farrer side in their first GIO Schoolboy Cup match against Hunter Sports High in Newcastle and this weekend is part of the Greater Northern Tigers U18s side who face Southern Stingrays first-up at Muswellbrook’s Olympic Park on Saturday.
A win would keep the Peter Stevens-coached Tigers alive in this year’s Country Championships with a semi-final on Sunday.
Winning a berth in the State CHS side is an enormous thrill from the Manilla product.
“It’s been a big goal of mine,” Manicaros said at last Friday night’s Greater Northern Tiger training session at Jack Wooalston Oval, North Tamworth.
“We played the trials at Toronto but lost the first two days pretty heavily.
“We went a lot better on the third day against the President’s team.
“The Tigers have a good side too while Farrer is strong too although we’ve only had two trials.
“Hopefully Hayden (Loughrey) is back fit.”
Manicaros is one of a number of Farrer players in the Tiger 16s and 18s playing at Muswellbrook this weekend.
He was also one of five who played in the Greater Western side at Myuna Bay.
Dylan Chown, Isaac Laird, Duncan Woods and Tye Barry also played in that side while Loughrey would have except for a foot injury.
Loughrey is hoping to have recovered from that foot injury to play for Farrer today and Greater Northern on the weekend but was still a little inconvenienced when he ran on it on Friday night.
Farrer coach Chris Oxford wasn’t sure if he’d play and gave him until yesterday to see if he’s right.
If he doesn’t play it will mean moving centre Jack Rumsby back to number one and finding another centre.
“It means a bit of a reshuffle,”Oxford said.
“And will weaken the backline a lot.”
He was, however, delighted for Manicaros’s State CHS selection.
“He’s worked really hard for it,” he said.
“He knew what he had to work on and has done that.
“He worked on his speed out of dummy half.
“He’s a very good leader as well.”
He’ll be counting on that, especially with a new-look halves combination in Barry and Marcus Hayne.
Both were involved in last year’s University Shield success and will be charged with steering them around following the departures of Josh Bermingham and captain Tom Say.
“I think we’ve got a competitive side,” Oxford said.
“There’s a lot of good kids coming through and some good kids who stepped up last year.”
They’ve also been fortunate to pick up a couple of “good forwards” – namely Laird and Woods.
“They were the Greater Western front row,” Oxford said.
He doesn’t know a lot about the Hunter side but has heard they think they’re a real shot.
That was the report coming back from the CHS trials, and that they will be big.
“We have to stop their go- forward, particularly early until they knock up,” Oxford said.
Then they can really start to move it and use their bigger engines to strike.
