An inspiration, a mums' group and a Maroon: Sharks' hard road to the GF

From conceding a bucketload of points per game a few years ago, a steadfast Fitzroy Gracemere Sharks crew has come a long way to their first grand final in the Rockhampton Women’s Premiership.

The Sharks are the only team to beat minor premiers Emu Park this year – once on their rivals’ turf and again almost two weeks ago to book their place in the decider.

But whatever happens at Rugby Park on Saturday, they will be extremely proud of the long and winding road to get there.

Fitzroy Gracemere coach Nicci Muller, originally from Bluff in the Central Highlands, has been involved at the club for the past three years, wanting to lend her coaching experience to the struggling club – at one stage coaching league, rugby union on Sevens at the same time.

The proudest part is about 60 per cent of the players have been involved have stayed involved in all three years despite all the challenges laid before them.

The most difficult came towards the end of the 2022 season, the team and the Rockhampton rugby league community rocked at the death of talented fullback Summer Nicholls – leading to the coach and club working extra hard to ensure a safe space for the players and their families.

“It was late in the year and it was really hard for the girls to return to football, so we had to do a lot of coaching around personal lives, which took over their footy,” Muller said.

“To get to where we are now is something you wouldn’t script with the tragedy we’ve had.

“The biggest, most important thing was making sure we got the player back to the field each week, because it was ensuring something positive was happening in their personal lives.

“I think about 90 per cent of our team are young mothers… so we’re usually chasing after kids while training is on.

“During winter we have our volunteers like “Aunty Shaz”, an elder, who would actually cook up dinner and have all the kids in the clubhouse with the heaters on, putting cartoons on or something while we’re out training. That’s a normal Tuesday-Thursday.

“These are mothers and football comes last for them, but in some cases football means everything to them because it’s a breather away from their normal life, whatever struggle is going on at the time, let everything out… but just being around other young mums and women in general that keep lifting them up, every day, no matter what.

“It’s building that sisterhood outside of football.

“We did some player profiles on all the players just recently and their answers were similar just around the ‘what do you like about this club?’ and it was all the same answers, just around the group, they’ve become sisters, how the club is family orientated.

“For me as a coach, that’s my job done. If they’ve got friendship outside of football, then I know that coaching has gone further than just the skill on the field.”

A bonus has been the addition of Harvey Norman Queensland Maroons winger Emmanita Paki – who has been playing fullback – and the experience of Sharni Upton to help guide the younger players on the field.

Paki, originally from Emerald, was introduced to rugby league through the Highlanders – a team Muller formed in 2011 to put female players from the Central Highlands in the spotlight.

The elusive back played her first game of footy for the team as a 17-year-old at an indigenous carnival in Rockhampton.

The sisterhood of the Sharks has been a key support network for Paki – so much so she beat Muller back to Rockhampton after the Origin decider in Townsville so she could back up (sadly the opposition forfeited).

“Emma’s loving it playing club football, just because of the group of girls she’s with. She’s just loving her footy and been some of her best of her Origin stuff,” Muller said.

“There’s certain things she has to do in this team, just like everybody else, and when they do those jobs, they work very well together.”

The Sharks come up against an experienced Emu Park side eager to go one better than 2023, and Muller is hoping “all the old Fitzroy players” come along to show their support.

The final message will be to concentrate on winning as many moments in the grand final – a first for many of the players – and stay humble.

“I just want them to focus on what our plan has been for the year, playing our game and making sure we not doing extra stuff and trying to flash it up or anything like that, we just stick to our game plan, play the game we’ve come to play, remember how we got here, and also I suppose we will dedicate a piece of this to the memory of Summer as well.”

The match at 2pm will form one part of a massive grand final day on Saturday, also featuring Norths v Biloela in under 19s, Brothers v Yeppoon in reserve grade and Emu Park v Yeppoon – a repeat of last year’s three-point epic – in men’s A grade.

It’s a huge weekend for finals and grand finals around the state, with title deciders in the South Burnett (Nanango v Murgon), Roma & District (Cities v St George) and Zenadth Kes (Suburbs v Mulga).