Friday 7 November
By Isabelle Bambach
Former Australian NRL great Scott Prince has returned to participate in his second Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games this year with touch football team North West Stars.
Scott said the 35+ division men’s team was formed in 2012 from a nostalgic memory of when the team played together as North-West Queensland high school students.
“We’re a team that’s pretty much made up of an under 15’s school boys team from Mt Isa that won our state carnival in Townsville,” Prince said.
“We were reconnected two years ago by one of the boys who said we should enter a team in the Masters Games.
“It was a success last event – we had a lot of fun and now we just want to keep on continuing the trend.”
Prince said the touch football competition at this year’s Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games was exciting and exceeded his expectations.
“The quality of touch footy is just fantastic,” Prince said.
“I was very surprised as far as the skill level goes – especially you know, once you hit 35 [years old] you start to lose a bit of speed.”
Despite the high-quality skill of participants, Prince said the North West Stars team has been successful again in 2014, winning three of their four games so far by a minimum of three tries, with one draw.
“We won this morning against Port Moresby which was a pretty comfortable game, but they never gave up and that was the thing about them,” Prince said.
“It’s not too serious, but once you’re out on the field those natural competitive juices tend to flow.”
Prince said the North West Stars have created a team shield – the Tim McKee Shield – for their past and future Masters Games Touch Football competitions – the name inspired by their former Townsville under 15’s coach.
“The Tim McKee Shield revolves around picking a star of the tournament – judged by all of our players – who will get to take it home for the two years until the next Masters Games,” Prince said.
“It adds to the fun and brings out a little bit more of the competitive side in the team which is great.”
The North West Stars will be return to participate in the Masters Games in 2016.
The new system was born here and filagra this is not something that we would like to see. Caverta whilst better in some elements but not significant for us.
