The Central region is right in the middle of premiership season.
We’ve had grand finals left, right and centre over the past couple of weeks, with many more still to come.
Over the weekend just gone, we saw the extraordinary story of 18-year-old captain/coach Mannix Hunt leading the Barcaldine Sandgoannas to the title in Central West.
In their 100th year, Miriam Vale claimed the Northern Districts premiership while Gayndah overcame Monto in the Central Burnett grand final.
We also saw the Clermont Bears and Blackwater Crushettes take out the men’s and women’s Central Highlands titles respectively in the first weekend of August.
There’s been plenty to celebrate and much more still to come to get excited about.
But we’ve also had a lot to reflect on recently and even with all of this football going on around us, our attention in the Central region has also shifted slightly towards our Support Squad.
The Queensland Rugby League’s Support Squad is a wellbeing program that endeavours to make a positive difference in community rugby league, with volunteers at clubs across the state.
These volunteers get training for these roles, including Mental Health First Aid accreditation and personal and professional development.
The program launched towards the back end of last year and while Central’s numbers around Support Squad volunteers – “the purple shirts” - are fairly good, they need to be a lot better.
We need to boost these numbers right across our region, especially in light of recent events in rugby league.
The loss of former Queensland Maroons coach Paul Green was tragic and highlights the need for a focus on mental wellbeing and having the right systems in place for those who need help or someone to talk to.
The passing of former Hostplus Cup star and Charleville product Michael Purcell was equally heartbreaking, and there will be plenty of people now who are hurting and looking for those resources, looking for someone to lean on.
We’re very keen to get all leagues and clubs in the Central region on board with the Support Squad.
To have particular people in every single club who anyone can go to, young or old, and feel comfortable enough to have a chat with is vital.
It’s become a priority for our region, with the program here led by the Central wellbeing operations manager, Ryan Charles.
The more people that learn about the program, then hopefully the more people will want to be involved in some way.
We have to look at communicating better to get more people on board.
Now is the time.
Another area in which we are also focusing on at the moment is ensuring all our coaches are accredited.
At our latest region meeting this week, the numbers came in and we are at nearly 92 per cent of our coaches being fully accredited in the region, with some coaches part of the way there.
That’s a very high figure that we’re very happy about.
Of course we’re trying to achieve 100 per cent but this is a goal we set at the start of the year and to see these numbers is highly encouraging, especially given the efforts of the QRL and NRL’s Central teams.
Coaches play such a crucial role in the lives of our kids and we want to make sure that here in the Central region we are always as best equipped as we can be.
