City v Country preview: First step on pathway to Maroons

The boys game kicks off at 1.15pm and will be officiated by referee Izzy Davidson and touch judges Lachlan Ware and Jacob Gregg.

The games can be watched live and free at Qplus.tv.

A word from the coaches

Queensland Under 17 Country coach Amanda Ohl

“My goal is always to connect with the team, setting the values to set these girls up for the future to move from here into the Queensland Under 19s or into the Harvey Norman Queensland Maroons. To make them understand what it takes to be a professional or semi-professional athlete. This is the first real step in seeing these things… they’re away from home for a week, their schedule is jam-packed. Their diet has got to be right, their recovery has got to be right, their training has got to be right. They have to be active in what they’re doing this week… there’s no down time from it, no real time to relax. It’s go-go-go. So it's a big learning curve for them. For the game, I hope we actually compete a lot better than we did last year. We had such a good year in camp last year… we connected well, we trained and prepared a lot better than the scoreboard showed. Our goal again is to have the girls well prepared, and to prepare them for the future. What will be, will be on Saturday. Hopefully this year we come out on top.”

Queensland Under 17 City girls coach Ana Fotu

“My goal this week is just making sure they play as a team… uniting the girls and getting them to be comfortable around each other and play the best footy they can. Coaching at this level, it’s a blessing and I’m really grateful for the opportunity. With every team we coach, it’s about getting the girls down. For me, you can have the same team on paper but it’s about attitude and effort. Who wants it the most. Who is going to take the extra three steps.”

Queensland Under 17 Country coach Antonio Kaufusi

“I always say this, but I'm not too fazed about the result... that will look after itself. For me, it is just making sure the boys know what we value and they buy into that. To make sure that they buy into the Maroons DNA. There’s plenty of talent here, with boys from everywhere. The selectors have done a fantastic job, which makes my job a lot easier. We’re pretty excited for Saturday.”

Queensland Under 17 City coach Jordan Rankin

“This is my first year being involved with the Queensland representative programs. I helped out with the Queensland Under 18 Emerging Origin squad this year and now the Queensland Under 17 City coach. Coaching is obviously what I want to do after I've retired at the end of this year. I've been lucky enough to take on a few different roles within the Queensland pathway system… I’ve really enjoyed it. Obviously being a Gold Coast kid myself coming through the ranks, Origin 18s, 19s, 20s and stuff like that... it’s really good to be involved with this system on the other end of it now, being a coach. So I can hopefully shed a bit of insight and a bit of information towards these young kids coming through and hopefully I can help their development moving forward to hopefully represent the Maroons in the future. At the end of the day, we're all working towards the same cover goal. I'm lucky that I've got a lot of kids here who have played a lot of footy together, so the connection piece is there for them in terms of what they can do there. Given the last couple of results over the last couple of years between City and Country, it's pretty evenly matched… City won a couple of years ago, Country beat them last year… it's up to grabs this year. Obviously come Saturday, we want the boys to have a crack and go after the game together. May the best team win. But at the end of the day, it's a bigger picture for us as part of the Queensland pathway. We want these guys to be able to improve to the best of their ability together… there's a bigger picture for us to send these guys hopefully on the trajectory of the play for the Maroons one day.”