The Games begin on Sunday and run through to next Friday with more than 1700 uni and TAFE students from Queensland, Northern Territory and northern New South Wales universities attending. 

Brad King, Sports Co-ordinator at SportUNE and UNE team manager, said “there has been a lot of interest in the games and we are fielding one of the strongest teams for a number of years”.

“We are sending 14 teams to the games in eight different sports, both individual and team sports, including women’s and mixed netball, women’s soccer, men’s and women’s volleyball, lawn bowls, ten pin bowling, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s hockey and tennis,” King said.

“The women’s soccer team is going in to this year’s competition as one of the favourites. They won gold last year and, with only a few new faces on the team, they will be a strong contender.

“The men’s and women’s volleyball teams have been training extremely hard and they may well place in the top three.”

Sam Stephenson and Rebecca Atherton are co-captaining the team and both believe the games are a great chance for uni students to play sport on a competitive level and an opportunity for them to mix with their peers and meet new people.