Sienna's
Impressive Reign
Wednesday 5th
May
By Milton Bristow
It
might be only a small school in only its third year of operation,
but Sienna Catholic
College on the Sunshine Coast has set the school league scene
alight since it joined the
fray in 1997. The original Year 8 team was thrown together with
players from the
four codes, drawn from a school population of barely 100 male and
female students.
Feeding
off a strong pride in their fledgling school, the Sienna boys
went into battle in
the hurly-burly of the Sunshine Coast Schools' Zone rugby league
competition, taking on schools like Mountain Creek and Kawana
with populations of around 1500. Team spirit
gelled when they lost their first game after the bell. And how.
They won their next
sixteen games on the trot. There would be no more losing for
these warriors.
Sienna finished 1997 in grand style.
After winning the zone championship they went
on to the
Greater Metropolitan competition in Brisbane where they won the
quarter
final, then beat Wavell in the semi final to earn a spot in the
final at Suncorp Stadium.
They defeated Beaudesert to claim the Greater Metropolitan title,
a great effort indeed.
1998
saw Sienna pick up where they left off the year before. They
finished the year 9 zone
competition undefeated to again earn a berth in the Greater
Metropolitan competition.
They beat Deception Bay in the quarter final and again defeated
Wavell in the semi final.
Sienna
were going for their 17th win on the trot when they met
Beaudesert again in the
final. They looked to have the championship sewn up when they led
18-14 with one
minute left, but Beaudesert scored a try in the dying moments to
claim victory 20-18.
Apart
from the first game and the last, in its first two years the
newest school league
team in the region had won every game - 16 from 18, a pass mark
by any measure.
In their third and final year (there
is no local competition in Years 11-12), and
with a student population now around 330, the giant-killers look
set to continue
their rampage in 1999. Last week they won their first game of the
season
against Mountain Creek, with Kawana next on the menu.
The
man who has been mentor and coach to the Sienna side throughout
their
barnstorming of the school league scene is maths co-ordinator
Brian Garnett.
He attributes his young charges' outstanding success to a number
of factors.
School
pride, pulling together as a team, emphasis on the basics of
strong defence
and ball control, a nucleus of very talented players, plus the
'David vs Goliath' factor,
all contributed to the team's success, according to Brian. He
said the team hated losing,
and now has a strong expectation each game, that they will win.
Opposition, take note.
Four
key players from the victorious Sienna sides in the first two
years were team mates
in the Sunshine Coast representative sides for the state
championships in '97 and '98. This
year at Rockhampton they will be together again in the Under 15
Sunshine Coast side,
except that one of them will be representing Maroochydore High,
instead of Sienna.
Shane
Boyd (wing), Brett Muldoon (lock) and Joshua Shuttlewood (bench)
will be flying
the Sienna flag, while Sean Dalton (five-eighth) is the
Maroochydore member of the
talented quartet. No doubt coach Murray Stanton will be looking
for that Sienna
spirit to manifest itself on May 27 when his team takes the field
at Rockhampton.
