Ballina Seagulls take on the Cougars at Casino
Ballina Seagulls, coming off the back of a 94-0 trouncing of South Grafton, take on Casino RSM Cougars in Retravision Northern League at Queen Elizabeth Park, Casino, on Sunday.
The Seagulls share top spot on the ladder with Byron Bay, Murwillumbah and Tweed Coast but are in second place on percentages behind Byron.
Casino hit form with a win over arch-rivals Kyogle last weekend, but will find the Seagulls a tough proposition, despite the home ground advantage.
In other Northern League games this weekend, Mullumbimby and Byron Bay clash in what should be another great local derby, Lower Clarence play Cudgen, South Grafton are at home to South Tweed, Tweed Coast take on Murwillumbah in another great local derby, and Marist Brothers play Grafton Ghosts.
Meanwhile, Chris Binge, pictured, the son of Ballina Seagulls rugby league coach Chris snr, has been chosen in the New South Wales Combined Catholic Colleges league team to compete in the Australian Schoolboys Under-15 championships in Adelaide in June.
Chris, a Woodlawn College student, is a big lad for his age. His grandfather Gary says he is the same size as the front-rowers in the NSW Catholic Colleges team. Chris plays in the centres.
Chris has been a regular in Group One Junior representative league teams and such are his ball skills that he has been dubbed a ‘young Arthur Beetson’.
“To reach this level has been an ambition and dream of mine since I began playing rugby league,” Chris said.
The cost of playing in the championships is not cheap: All up it’s $1400, and Chris is appealing for sponsorship. If you can help out, contact Chris Binge snr through the Ballina Seagulls Club.
May 26th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
UPDATE: The Northern Star reports this morning (Saturday) that the Byron Bay Red Devils-Mullumbimby Giants game will not be played this weekend.
Mullum claims the Bay boys don’t want to play them on a Saturday night because at home on Saturday night, the Giants are very tough to beat.
Byron claims they told Mullum weeks ago that they would have a shortage of players tonight but would be available to play on Sunday.
It’s now up to a Northern League management committee meeting to decide whether the match has been deferred or forfeited.
Whatever the outcome, you can bet that the next match between the two will be, to use a well-worn cliche, a no-holds barred affair.
Matches between the two Byron Shire rivals are always tough. One who can vouch for that is Ballina’s Tony ‘Tilta’ Halpin.
We were talking about this latest Byron-Mullum stoush this morning and Tilta remembered his first match for Byron against Mullum.
It was about 1982 and Tilta was working at the meatworks at Byron.
Blokes he worked alongside and was mates with played for Mullum. Tilta says he copped a bashing from them, but on Monday, ‘everything was sweet’.
Now, Tilta was a halfback in his playing days but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t tough. After all, he did have quite a successful career as a pro boxer.
We look forward to the next Battle of Byron Shire!
June 1st, 2007 at 5:58 pm
[...] last week’s debacle over the Mullum-Byron clash (the league ruled Byron forfeited the game), Ballina Seagulls share top spot on the ladder [...]