WHILE the real action is still a couple of months away from kicking off, Central North launched its 2016 season at Barraba yesterday.
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The launch incorporated the pre-season meeting where the draw for the season was ratified.
“The modified two-tier system has been confirmed,” president Tony Byrnes said.
Or re-confirmed after the clubs voted to keep the two tier system in place late last year, albeit with some alterations.
The main one is the structure of the finals with just the one finals series but the team that finishes top of the second tier joining the top tier sides to form a six-team finals.
The series as things stand will run over four weeks starting on Saturday August 13 and including potentially two weekends of Saturday/Sunday finals culminating in the grand final on September 3.
The competition will kick-off on April 23 with Scone hosting Pirates, Barraba at home to Narrabri, Gunnedah travelling up to Moree, Quirindi at home to Walcha and Inverell heading to Tamworth.
“Other discussions centred on the colts and trying to boost our participation there,” Byrnes said.
“Things are looking a bit brighter there.”
“We’ve got six teams in the 16s and six in the 18s.”
“That’s a bit of an improvement there in the 18s.
“We only had four last year.”
Two of the sides rely on combinations, one of which will see players from the Armidale Blues playing with Inverell.
Farrer will again play in both competitions. They will again be associated with Barraba but will this year be called Farrer rather than Farraba.
The Central North zone coaches also reported how their Country Championship preparations are going, and development manager Garry Walsh addressed the meeting about the women’s sevens competition he’s hoping to get up and running this year.
While all that was happening at Barraba, the Northern Inland 15s were capping off a Sydney jaunt that saw the region’s Junior Gold sides both register wins. The 15s came away with a 27-22 win over South Australia at TG Milner Field.
The five point win followed a 27 point loss to a very strong Sydney North Harbour outfit on Saturday. But the Jeff Watt and Daniel Bowcock side almost blew the chance to notch their first win, conceding 17 unanswered points in the second half.
“We played very very poorly but we managed to hold on,” Watt said.
The 17s results were the reverse with the Country Eagles Western Province side accounting for Met East on Saturday before going down to a strong Victorian side 19-7 yesterday.
