WHILE several of Orange City and Orange Emus’ teams are hoping to be celebrating wins in the opening week of the Blowes Clothing Cup finals come Saturday evening, five colour city expats will be hoping for much more than that.
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Gold Coast District Rugby Union grand final glory, that’s what Shaun Cole, Ross Morrissey, Trent McCabe and Josh and Morgan Scott want.
All five of the former Orange guns will line up for the Griffith University Knights in Saturday’s grand finals, continuing a long-standing link between the club and the colour city.
“For a good six or seven years we’ve had a good group of players here who are from Orange, we hope that link continues. Our next target is probably Emus’ hooker Tom Goolagong,” Cole, the Knights’ club captain, laughed.
“Myself and Ross have played together since Wallas, we’re Orange City juniors while the other three boys played a lot of rugby league for Orange Hawks. Wayde Scott was club captain here before me, he’s an Emus junior.
“It’s great to have such a strong link to our hometown.”
Morrissey and Cole will line up in the first grade grand final against the undefeated Surfers Paradise Dolphins while McCabe and the Scotts will play in the third grade decider against the Gold Coast Eagles.
Morrissey and Cole will be trying to help their club to its second first grade title, and first in two decades.
It won’t be an easy task considering the Dolphins will be led around by two ex-internationals in former Italian five-eighth Kris Burton and former Tongan prop Tonga Lea’aetoa.
“Surfers Paradise haven't lost a game all year and they have that experience, so it will be tough but we’ve been on a bit of a roll lately too, pretty much since Ross got back from playing in Canada,” Cole said.
In the top grade the Knights went through the regular season losing just five games but crucially, hit form at the back end of the year.
After losing to the Eagles and then the Dolphins in rounds 14 and 15 respectively, the Knights have gone on a five-game winning streak, including the semi and preliminary finals.
“It’s been 20 years since our club’s one and only first grade grand final win, I think we’re an awesome chance of grabbing a win,” Cole said.
Griffith University’s third graders also lost just five games all year, finishing second while the Eagles won the minor title.
They’ve shared the spoils so far in 2016, winning two games apiece, although the Eagles claimed a confidence-boosting win in the major semi-final a fortnight ago.
Third grade kicks off at 11.30am and firsts at 3.15pm, at Southport’s James Overell Park.