The Northern Rivers Titans are taking a different approach to the 2025 Men’s Country Championships this year resulting in a more youthful side taking the field in March.
Head coach Wayne Forbes, who is A grade coach for the Cudgen Hornets, and his selection panel have named a squad of 23, who will begin training later this month ahead of their Round One game against Northern Tigers in Lismore on 8 March.
“This year we’ve leant towards a younger squad. The average age is 24 and we’ve got a bunch of players who are trialling with Tweed Seagulls in the Queensland Cup,” Forbes said.
“They’ve been training for five weeks already so they’ll be coming with a good base behind them.
“We also have three players who have previously played country rep footy – Adam Walker (2024 NSW Country Open Men) and the Zibell brothers, Caleb and Connor (Northern Rivers Titans 2022 and 2023 Men’s Country Championships).”
The squad of 23 has been drawn from 11 of the 13 Northern Rivers Regional Rugby League (NRRRL) clubs comprising about 450 players in total.
“Obviously we need some experienced players but this year we’ve gone a slightly different direction than we have in the past,” Forbes said.
“We have eight or nine ex-NRL players in our NRRRL competition but we feel they have other avenues to give back to community footy.
“So we’ve gone the more development route to give other players a chance at a rep jersey.”
The squad of 23 will be trimmed to 18 for Northern Rivers’ first game. They will be wearing the First Nations jersey designed for the Gold Coast Titans NRL team last year, as it features artwork by Sylvia Khan Koori Doobai who has cultural ties and connections to the Bundjalung people of northern NSW. (Above photo of 2024 jersey. Courtesy: Darrell Nash, NashyPix.com)
Forbes said the annual NSWRL Men’s Country Championships was significant to players even though they had to juggle full-time jobs with club and now representative team training.
“It’s really important because players can see that this is still a pathway to higher competitions. This is a way to get noticed by other clubs and coaches,” he said.
“We’re trying to approach our training as like a rep camp without actually going into camp.
“We want clubs to buy into this, but if we’re taking their players away from their own pre-season training then we get the clubs off-side.
“We’ll essentially train on weekends, to take that pressure off clubs, and spread over five or six weeks.
“That way we can get the combinations and team bonding done well like they do in a traditional week-long rep camp.”
The Northern Rivers Titans made the Semi-finals last year but lost a close match to Monaro Colts (12-8).
