After three days of intense competition, the 2023 Queensland State Cup winners were crowned on Sunday, bringing the first of six events in the Festival of Touch to a close.
Teams from across the state, and even the world, came together at the Gold Coast’s Coomera Sports Park for the annual event, with state honours up for grabs.
The Premier Men’s, Women’s and Mixed finals attracted all attention on Sunday, all three games going down to the wire.
In the Premier Women’s Final, a star studded UQ Rebels were faced with tough competition from Caboolture.
But the Rebels, captained by Queensland and Australian representative player Sammy Jo-Curtis, proved too strong, upsetting the Sunny Coast favourites 4-3.
Curtis said she was proud of her teams efforts to claim back-to-back titles.
“It is really awesome, this is such a special group of girls and we’re so connected so I think win or loss today, this season has been incredible and like nothing we’ve ever done before,” Curtis said.
“We watched their (Caboolture) semi and they were red hot, and we knew they were going to be really pumped up. So we were really nervous, but relieved to get the win.
“Playing the international teams that are here has been really awesome, and the opportunity to have them here is really special. We’re really grateful as a massive touch football country to be able to host them,” she said.
Having won their division at the Queensland State Cup every year since the event’s inception in 2019, Rockhampton Premier Men once again delivered a special grand final performance to defeat UQ Rebels 6-2.
Rockhampton debutant Connor Guley said it took a full team effort to get the win.
“This group of boys always put in their all, and they’ve been pretty accepting of me coming up from 20s for the first time,” Guley said.
“It’s a pretty big step up to Premiers, especially the pace, but we’ve got a pretty good training group up at Rocky, pushing each other all the time so it’s been good,” he said.
Hometown heroes Gold Coast claimed the Mixed Premier title, defeating Coolum 8-7 in the final.
Congratulations to local Gold Coast Touch taking out Champion Affiliate.
For full results from the 2023 Queensland State Cup – click here.
The Festival of Touch action now moves to RACV Royal Pines Resort for the Queensland Touch Football Awards, set to be held on Monday 27 November.
To find out more about the 2023 Festival of Touch – click here.
