Sport News

It was a very positive set of sport results last weekend against St Edmund’s College. The Chess team got the weekend off to a great start with a comprehensive victory. On Saturday Marist won all but four football matches and all but one rugby match against St Edmund’s. Many of our victories were by a large margin, with very positive performances across the board. What was interesting was that two of the losses across both sports were in our premier teams. Coming into the College as a new staff member this year I feel I am able to look at these results somewhat objectively, rather than I possible might after a couple of years in the school, or how boys, parents and coaches might look at them. My very preliminary view, watching Term 1 sport and now 3 weeks of Term 2 sport, is that the competition and our approach to it does not help our premier teams. 

We won every other rugby match on the weekend, most by 20-30 points or more. It is human nature for boys and coaches in these teams to develop a sense of comfort, ease and confidence from knowing the match will not present a significant challenge week after week, year after year. My understanding of the history of the AIC competition is this is not a new phenomenon, that Marist is the team to beat for the other schools. Yet, from this position of strength, neither of our 1sts teams were able to win. This was despite dominating their respective matches. The 1st XI led 3-1 at half time and the 1st XV were camped in the SEC 22 metre zone for almost the entire first quarter of the match. I am more qualified to comment on the football, where we let our focus shift from the task at hand to the opposition tactics, and when St Edmund’s converted an early second-half penalty there was only ever going to be one winner. The boys were not able to reset and alter the trend of the match. Similarly in the 1st XV, when Marist failed to capitalise on the possession and field position early there was a sense of frustration and a degree of panic amongst the team, leading to 36 handling errors, that saw victory lost. In all fairness, it is a significant credit to St Edmund’s first teams for having the ability, trust and game plan to win both fixtures despite history and results in all other matches suggesting otherwise.

I see these results as challenges for us, and look at the positives in the learning opportunities for our boys as they grow into men. We all like winning, that’s why we keep score, but I am confident that these young men learned a lot about themselves on Saturday and will be better men for the experience.

The lesson in this is that we need to be more resilient, more able to adapt to what the game requires of us, and more patient. It is hard to do when we win most weeks by large margins, but we must, and they are attributes to develop from our youngest athletes through to our premier teams. Our programs need to develop further the expectations of reaching standards that are not necessarily measured on a scoreboard, a sense of self and team discipline, a focus on self-development as an athlete and a better understanding of what it means to be a Marist sportsman. As I said, these are really challenging to do for boys and coaches when we win most weeks but by doing this, not only will we develop better athletes, we will develop better people.       

Weekly Sports Draws

At Marist College Ashgrove we work hard to provide as many boys as possible with the opportunity to play school sport as part of the Saturday AIC competition. From time to time this means that some changes are required to the weekend sports draw as each week progresses and our competitors work at fielding teams to play our boys. I would like to thank parents for being flexible over the past few weeks while we work with the other Colleges in the AIC to set each weekend’s draw.

We understand that parents are looking for a level of certainty when it comes to the weekend sport. For this reason, the College has implemented a traffic light colour coding system to the weekly draw.

By implementing a traffic light colour coding system parents can be confident that game times highlighted green are confirmed.  Game times highlighted amber we are confident that they will be confirmed and we will change to green as soon as possible. If your game time is highlighted red we are still working with the other Colleges to confirm game times and locations. 

It is important that all parents continue to monitor app notices each week to ensure they are up to date with possible draw changes. Leading up to the point when all games “go green”, we will update the draw daily and publish in the app and newsletter.

Rugby Union - Round 3 v Villanova

Football - Round 3 v Villanova

Rugby

Last weekend Marist travelled to Ipswich to take on Sr Edmund’s College. It was a positive day all round with every team winning with the exception of the 1st XV who were very unlucky to go down 8-5, key injuries in the first half affecting the result. Team of the week goes to Mr Gaiter and the men of the 2nd XV, who had a resounding 65-5 win. Congratulations also to the 4th XV (47-0); 8A (48-5) and 7A (46-0).

This weekend we host Villanova College and celebrate and recognise the Old Boys of Marist Rosalie. 

1st XV

The boys arrived at Ipswich determined to get a result after a very disappointing performance against St Laurence’s in Rd 1 at home. Eddies got an early penalty right in front and took the points to gain an early 3-point lead in the match. Safe hands, smart kicking and good carries from Patrick Tierney and Tom Howard out the back, along with strong carries from Harry Gould and Toby Anderson saw us spend a lot of time inside St Edmund’s 22m area; however, due to some solid defence from Eddies and some silly errors from Ashgrove, we failed to convert this field position into points. We felt confident going into half time that we could still get the result we wanted despite losing Patrick Tierney and Charlie Gribble late in the first half to injury.

Bailey Caplick stood up to the challenge after coming off the bench to replace Gribble with some impressive carries alongside Thomas Weaver who proved hard to stop up the middle and Aiden O’Connell who consistently put his body on the line in rucks and in defence. Jack Billing defended strongly before scoring Marist’s first try from a textbook maul to give Ashgrove a 5-3 lead. Things started to shape up for Marist with Tasman Barry carrying strongly on the edge and Connor Lyons slotting into fullback with some good kick returns; however, silly errors continued to hurt us and after losing Harry Gould to injury, Eddies scored a late try to stretch to an 8-5 lead that Marist would not recover from.

Football

This weekend Marist hosts Villanova College with the 1st XI looking to bounce back from a frustrating loss against St Edmund’s College last Saturday. Marist dominated the day only losing four matches and only one below the open teams.

Team of the week this week goes to 9B boys who won 13-0, closely followed by 7B (12-0); 7A (10-0) and the 8Bs (8-0). The positive results from this group of younger teams augurs well for the future of Marist Football.

1st XI

After an early SEC goal, Marist settled into their rhythm quickly and when we worked out our set-pieces were causing St Edmund’s problems were able to put pressure on the home side and scored three first-half goals, all from set-pieces, to lead 3-1 at the break, thanks to goals from Harry Lee, Ryan Oostenbroek and Isaac Roach. A lead that may have slightly flattered us, but a comfortable lead nonetheless.

The second half got off to a frustrating start with a silly penalty given away and SEC immediately back into the contest. From here SEC took control of the match and created numerous chances, some of which were well defended by replacement goalkeeper Michael Hayter, but the tide had well and truly turned and SEC continued to dominate and ran out victors 4-3 in a result that will be very frustrating for the team. 

Cross Country

QLD All Schools Cross Country 

Congratulations to the following students who competed at the 2022 QLD All School Cross Country Championships over the weekend: 

13 Years: Perry Croft – 13th

14 Years: Zac Milligan – 2nd, Will Banner – 21st

15 Years: Asher Parkin – 4th

18/19 Years: Zack Newsham – 6ths

Met North Nominations 

The College can nominate a small number of students in each age group to participate at the Met North Cross Country on Tuesday 24 May.

If students (Year 7-12) would like to be considered for selection, please email Mr Mitch Reid reidm@marash.qld.edu.au by Wednesday 11 May.

Round 1 Results

Chess

Football

Rugby Union

Sport Canteens

Across the first three weeks of Term 2, we have had 71 people volunteer in the sports canteens. This is a great result.

The next two weeks are major fixtures and the sports canteens will be pumping all day - 14 May and 21 May.

We will need help from all year levels to cover all slots for these two dates. Please put your name in the SignUp by Friday so we can plan for Saturday, and limit time and energy looking for volunteers at the last minute. 

Grandstand Main Canteen: https://signup.com/go/PzbXSyg

BBQ at the Grandstand: https://signup.com/go/VeoZFmY

Flats Canteen: https://signup.com/go/WfFXePA