IPSWICH has produced another batch of Queensland junior representative rugby league players.
On Friday, Ipswich under-16 players Darius Farmer and Brandon Russell join the Queensland under-16 team in camp to prepare for their match against NSW.
The game is a curtainraiser to State of Origin I in Sydney on May 27.
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Meanwhile, Tommy Wolf was the only Met West player to make either Queensland under-15 school sides following state titles at Roma recently.
The Fernvale resident and Northern Suburbs junior was picked in the Queensland under-15 White team to contest national titles in Sydney next month.
Met West finished fifth, providing Wolf with mixed emotions.
“It was good,” Wolf said. “We could have done better if we’d shifted the ball more.”
Wolf put a foot into the state side in Met West’s opening game against Sunshine Coast, scoring two tries.
The 15-year-old hopes his selection leads to getting picked up by an NRL club, with scouts no doubt set to scrutinise all the action at next month’s national titles in Sydney.
If he can play well enough to get selected in the Australian under-15 merit side he will be impossible to ignore.
Wolf puts his form down to his good fitness levels, thanks to pre-season training with the Ipswich Jets under 16s.
He was eventually cut from the Ipswich team before the Cyril Connell Cup competition began.
“I made the top 25 but then they cut me,” he said.
Wolf reckons that might have made him stronger.
It certainly made him want to prove some people wrong.
“It made me heaps more determined,” he said.
Farmer and Russell are both back rowers who impressed state selectors representing the Ipswich under 16s in the Cyril Connell Cup.
Farmer received the Player’s Player award for the Ipswich Under 16s at their presentation evening on Monday, so he is clearly a top class player.
But Russell’s selection came despite only playing the first and final games of the Cyril Connell Cup campaign, due to an ankle injury.
“In the trial and our first competitive game he killed it,” Riggs said. “Then he worked his way back to play in our last game.
“They were both quality players.”
PLAYER PROFILE
Tommy Wolf
Strength: My defence.
Room for improvement: Sticking on my tackles.
Biggest influence: My dad and mum (Tony and Alicia).
Favourite player: I don’t have one now Jarryd Hayne has gone.