2011 ARRBL Season

2011 saw Warwick Wildcats re-entering the ARRBL competition, and dominating like never before.

Only two divisions were contested, The A-Grade Mens and for the first time, the Womens competition was merged with the Reserve Grade Mens competition.

Warwick entered one team in the A-Grade competition, and entered two teams into the Reserve Grade competition..

Reserve Grade

As the only club ever to hold this trophy, Warwick entered two teams into this competition to retain the trophy, Warwick White, and Warwick Green.

 

The Warwick White team was coached by Darren Byrnes, and the team was made up of:

Darren Byrnes, Col O’Brien, Kevin Globio, PJ Siulai, Tony Shumack, Kurt Hobbs, Travis Paine, Greg Paine

The Warwick Green team was coached by Jay Clark, and the team was made up of:

Ben Long, Josh Cremasco, Rob Wendt, Rick Mutzelburg, Jeff Clark, Mick Quinn, Andrew Stubbings and Duncan McKenzie.

The teams to enter this division were (in order of standings at the end of the regular season): Warwick Green, Warwick White, Dalby Men, Dalby Women, Tenterfield, Highfields Women.

The two Warwick teams finished clear favourites at the end of the preliminary rounds of this competition, with the Green team going through undefeated, and the White team only losing their two games against the Green team.

Warwick Green (Or the Green machine as they were to be known) defeated the White team in a tightly contested Major preliminary final, and went straight through to the Grand final.

Down a couple of key players, the White team then suffered their only defeat to any other team in losing the knock-out semi final against the Dalby Mens team.

In the Grand Final, the Green team overcame a determined Dalby team to claim the Regional Championships, and remain undefeated for the 2011 season. Warwick STILL the only team name on the Under 19/ Reserve grade trophy.

A-Grade Mens

With Pop Dickersons team not entering into the competition for the first time, it was Warwicks turn to dominate the competition.

Warwick had two major signings for the season. The first was league veteran Snowy Quinn joining the team for the first time, after playing with 4 other teams in the ARRBL. The second being the acquisition of QBL leading points scorer, James Legan.

With Coach Clark spending the QBL season as an assistant Coach with the Toowoomba Mountaineers, he was able to get the QBL import and outstanding shooter to join the Wildcats for the ARRBL season.

After playing seven games in the QBL with the Ipswich Force, Declan Starasts also rejoined the Wildcats with QBL experience under his belt.

 

The Mens team was coached by Jeff Clark, with the team made up of:

James Legan, Damien (Snowy) Quinn, Declan Starasts, Dean Clark, DJ Cremasco, Andrew Rendalls, Shannon Slater.

Many of the Reserve grade players also played games with the team throughout the season, but were not eligible to play in the A-Grade finals.

The teams to enter this division were (in order of standings at the end of the regular season): Warwick, Tenterfield, Highfields, Toowoomba and Dalby.

Though there were not a lot of teams in the competition, the teams were very strong with players such as Ryan Jefferies and Nate Wilkins playing for Tenterfield, and Steven Kluck and Shane Davis playing for Highfields.

Warwick Dominated the regular season, only dropping one game.

In the major preliminary final however, they lost a one point game to the Tenterfield team who were playing with a lot of confidence, and had to back up the next week and face the Highfields team who featured Shane Davis and 7’ Toowoomba QBL centre, Steven Kluck.

Warwick were able to hold out the Highfields team in a close game to book themselves a re-match with the Tenterfield team.

In what was to be another classic Grand Final, Warwick skipped out to a huge early lead, due to some incredible 3 point shooting by James Legan. Tenterfield were able to claw their way back to take the lead for the first time in the last few minutes of the game. Warwick were back in the lead with 7 seconds to go, and Tenterfield took the last shot on the buzzer to win the game, but the shot missed, and Warwick held on to win yet another one point Grand Final Victory, and claim their second Regional title.

Tenterfield would be runners-up for the second season in a row.

Warwick win both Divisions to be contested