Considering it was already the club’s most successful season in history Orange representative director Joel Begnell predicted big things from the Thunder’s sides heading into last weekend’s NSW Touch Junior State Cup Southern Conference Championships.
You could argue he has a genuine claim on the title of modern-day Nostradamus following the Thunder’s collective effort at Wagga Wagga, which netted another club champions title to add to their already-bulging trophy cabinet.
All 13 of the Thunder’s boys’ and girls’ sides, competing in six different age divisions, made the finals with five eventually going on to make decider appearances too, although they all fell just short.
Nonetheless that incredible effort, with two other teams making the final four and another three finishing in the top eight, was enough for the side to secure the inaugural Southern Conference club championship, winning by two points from Penrith.
That gave the Thunder club a cleansweep of those titles having claimed the same honour at the Don Green Western Championships, Central Coast Junior Championships and Peter Wilson Memorial Championships too.
“It’s great to win this award as it shows how amazingly all of our teams performed, as they all contributed to us winning the club championship,” Begnell said.
“I feel our club’s in the strongest position ever in terms of our junior representative program, many people have given up countless hours of their time to help put us in this position too.
“Our teams’ results are fantastic but not surprising at all, I know how much hard work the players and coaches have put in over the last six months. Having five teams make the grand final and a further two in the semi-finals is by far the best our club has ever performed at the Junior State Cup.”
This year’s Junior State Cup was split into Northern and Southern Conferences for the first time, and eight of the Thunder sides have qualified for the finals at Wollongong in late April as a result of last weekend’s epic efforts.
They’ll take on the other Southern Conference qualifiers along with the best of the Northern Conference.
“It’s going to be a challenging tournament, but it’s a challenge our teams are certainly up to,” Begnell said.
“The teams now have two months to prepare for the finals and hopefully we can have our club come home with some junior state championships.”
