Sport

Ken Vary knows a lot about Tabulam and about horses ... Ken is a regular at the Bonalbo Show where he sat watching the horse competitions. In his younger years, Ken mustered and went to rodeos. At 77, he may ride less but he can spot a quality horse with no trouble at all. In 1976 he won Campdraft Horse of the Year at the North Coast National with his horse Gift.

The Eagles senior men have been training hard this off season and have generated a lot of excitement around the club with plenty of new signings and new players. The team is fresh from a win over the Tuggeranong Hawks 62-40 in a trial match at the Narrandera sportsground on the weekend.

Geoff Helisma. Morgan Cibilic grew up surfing Angourie before relocating to Newcastle, where he is a member of Merewether Surfboard Club – last week he took down two-times world champion Hawaiian John John Florence at the Rip Curl Newcastle Cup, made it to the semi finals and climbed the ratings ladder to number seven in the world.

Mid-Western NSW (Zone 4) has taken the spoils in the 2021 NSW Junior Inter-Zone 7-A-Side Championship at Club Dubbo. The local Zone took out the overall Championship ahead of Greater Western Sydney (Zone 5) and Central Coast (Zone 15).

Excitement is building ahead of all important second event of the Woolworths WA Junior Surf Titles presented by SunSmart, with some of Western Australia’s best junior surfers preparing to spend their school holidays competing along the metropolitan beaches.

Motorsport fans had their popular Easter Brobenah Burnout Championships canned for the second time due to COVID. But the not-for-profit organisation, Brobenah Burnouts, is aiming to stage a three round championship series, kicking off next month, and are also concentrating on raising funds for a new burnout pad.

Sports Expos are organised by local councils and at Mt. Isa we had over 1,000 people attending the excellent indoor facility with 66 sports, hobby and community groups displaying what they had on offer.

Pam Dillon. Students from a remote Barkly school have been developing their swimming and water safety skills during a fun-filled visit to Tennant Creek. Seventeen students from Canteen Creek School hit the pool for several days of aquatic instruction under the watchful eyes of Swimming NT Pathways Manager Thomas Noblett and Barkly Sports Education Coordinator Pam Dillon.

Rebecca Rowlings. The Narrandera Eagles senior women’s side broke their SNSW drought with a tense four-point win over the Brookdale Bluebells at Lockhart last Friday. After completing their inaugural season in 2020 without a win, the Eagles had endured six straight losses in 2021.

Leigh Robertson. Despite the onslaught of rain and resulting flooded fairways over the past week, our course is in great condition. Once again, our greens staff have worked hard to help the course recover so competitions and social play can go ahead.

A Tasmanian athletics icon is helping to grow a love of sport among Barkly school students. Jocelyn (Millar) Cubit, an Upper Primary Teacher at Epenarra School, south-east of Tennant Creek, boasts an impressive athletics resume, having represented Australia at three successive Commonwealth Games ... Still the holder of several Tasmanian athletics records, Jo is now devoted to inspiring remote school students.

The annual Murrabit Cod Challenge was held over the weekend of March 19-21, an event run each year by the Murrabit Football and Netball Club to raise funds for their club. The event has been running since 2009 and is run 100% by local volunteers. Entries for the competition were capped at 300 adult tickets and sold out in just over a week, proving to be a very popular event. There were also 39 enthusiastic junior competitors entered, who were all lucky enough to take home an assortment of prizes donated by Hookem Fishing.

Kendall Jennings. Jaydyn Coggins is a former student from Barham Primary School. The school had cups and that is where Jaydyn first tried sport stacking. At this moment the world changed for Jaydyn, his family moved to Adelaide after he completed year one. Then, at nine years old, Jaydyn rediscovered the sport on YouTube, but it would also be the start of an obsession with sport stacking. With the support of his family, at 15, Jaydyn quickly became the fastest cup stacker in Australia, with a dream to travel overseas to the World Sport Stacking Championships. As a young man with Autism, Jaydyn has had his hurdles to overcome throughout the years and so, when he found a sport that he not only loved, but excelled in, there was no turning back.

A recent 10 day stretch on the Southern Yorke Peninsula has been compared to the Mad March of Adelaide, with the amount of bowls being played. Bowls competitions were played across the region on almost every day from Thursday, March 4, to Monday, March 15.

The Downs & District Ladies Bowling Association will be celebrating their 70th year this year. The district recently bestowed the honour of life membership to five members.

Kirstin Nicholson. Organisers of Sunday’s AWMA Water Control Solutions 28th Cohuna Bridge to Bridge are thrilled with the day. Cooler weather presented ideal conditions for entrants who competed in seven running and cycling events from as early as 8am ... Entrants travelled from across Victoria and New South Wales to participate, with many staying overnight and injecting cash into local businesses. With events catering for all ages and abilities, participants ranged from serious runners and cyclists to those out for a leisurely Sunday walk, with many ex-locals returning for the event.

The Wakool Show was back with a fantastic flurry of fun, food, music and entertainment. This year’s show was rolled into one action packed evening and the community support was fantastic with families coming from Wakool, Moulamein, Koondrook-Barham and Deniliquin.

Nicholas Rupolo. Narrandera-born GWS Giant Matt Flynn is set for an AFL debut this week after recovering from a devastating ACL injury last year. The Giants host St Kilda on Sunday with Flynn to take to the paddock in what is a dream come true after 12 years in the making.

Seven champions have been crowned after an exciting opening event of the 2021 SunSmart WA Bodyboard Titles presented by Good Earth. Mandurah provided summer-like conditions over the weekend with small, clean and sun-drenched waves on offer for the diverse mix of talent who converged from right across WA to compete.

Geoff Helisma. Yamba Surf Life Saving Club member Kalani Ives says her “main goal is to paddle across the Molokai Channel and win that” ... Kalani has already racked up a numerous outstanding results competing in the Nippers – and at the 2021 NSW Surf Life Saving Championships, held at Swansea on March 6 and 7, she won the U17 Iron Woman, came third in the U17 Female Board Race and fourth in the U17 Female Single Ski.

More than 800 of the state’s fittest and fastest Masters competitors braved both scorching sun and squalls of rain to show they’ve still got what it takes after a big two days at the NSW Masters Surf Life Saving Championships, proudly supported by Your local club, at Swansea Belmont.

A special tribute to merchant marine has been gaining plenty of attention in its off-beat location. You can find it at the 7th tee at Carpentaria Golf Club in Weipa. Erected by team members from Smit Lamnalco, the anchor in the garden bed is a tribute “to honour the Australian Merchant Navy who sailed in all wars, past, present and future”.