Group 10 has shelved its All Stars concept for 12 months after the 2018 clash at Cowra was met by a lack of support from some clubs.
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In its third installment last season at Sid Kallas Oval, a modest crowd was on hand to watch the Group 10 All Stars down the Indigenous All Stars 26-24.
Four tries from Orange CYMS star and Terry Brown medalist Tom Satterthwaite was the highlight of the match which wasn’t decided until the final minutes.
The Indigenous All Stars won the concept’s first two games in 2016 and 2017, at Cowra and then Blayney respectively.
But in the lead-up to all three games both sides have been forced into a multitude of changes with Group 10 clubs often staging their own pre-season trials on the same day.
That player unavailability has taken the shine off the All Stars’ spectacle to a degree.
The inscription on the All Stars trophy, held aloft by Luke Branighan in 2018, says ‘biyambul mayiny ngumbaay-dyil’ which is Wiradjuri for ‘all people together as one in one place’, and that’s exactly what Group 10 officials want to see.
It’s hard some years, you do have to search for the players to fill a squad.
- All Stars organiser Will Ingram.
As a result, the concept will now be played every second year, kicking back off in 2020, in the hope clubs will better support the idea as a biennial game.
All Stars organiser and Indigenous All Stars coach Will Ingram would prefer to see the concept staged each season, but admits the unavailability of players is an issue.
“It’s hard some years, you do have to search for the players to fill a squad,” Ingram said.
“Everyone has their pre-season mapped out and what’s on and the All Stars game is something else thrown in as well.
“But I think it should be there.”
This year’s match was a wonderful spectacle, one celebrating both the Indigenous culture Group 10 boasts and, as Ingram said in his post match speech, the multicultural Australia we currently live in.
The Group 10 All Stars side boasted a number of players with Pacific Island backgrounds.
Ingram has done a lot of the heavy lifting behind the scenes to get the All Stars game up and running and says he does so as a means of bringing the community together.
It’s for that reason he says the game should continue to be staged, in whatever form possible.
“You don’t get paid to play this game, you do it off the back of desire and if you want to be there you’ll be there,” Ingram said.
Ingram will again coach Cowra’s first division side in 2019, after returning to the Magpies last season.
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Nick McGrath
Editor, Central Western Daily
Editor, Central Western Daily
