Sport

GPS round six resulted in weather again dictating the outcome of our tennis fixtures and, disappointingly, all tennis games were cancelled. While our footballers had mixed results, the First XI achieved another win, leaving the last two games against Ipswich Grammar (away) and The Southport School (home) to determine the premiership.

After another exciting GPS round last weekend, we invite everyone to view the weekend’s results summary via myChurchie – GPS Sports and Activities.

Football

In round six, we welcomed Brisbane State High School (BSHS) to East Brisbane.

We ended the day with a very narrow overall loss: 10 wins, 3 draws and 11 losses. An additional 11 supplementary games were played, resulting in 3 wins, 5 draws and 5 losses.

Our First XI team made it six from six. The disciplined BSHS team made it hard work for the boys in blue and grey. They sat back and made it difficult for us to create meaningful chances. The deadlock was broken in the latter part of the first half when Zavier Veivers Brown flicked the ball onto Arden Hogan, who chipped the ball over the oncoming keeper to make it 1 nil. In the second half, the visitors were forced to open up, allowing us to have more space to play the ball. The pressure paid off when Arden Hogan put in a delightful cross for Zavier Veivers Brown to tap in at the back post. The game was finished off by our two centre-backs. Both goals were scored from Quinn MacNicol corners: the first was slotted in by Lucas Herrington and the 4–0 win was confirmed by an Ollie Reid header.

Below are a few examples of boys living by the Churchie Football values of integrity, discipline and determination in round six.

Integrity: Nate Wallden (10A): In a very tough and demanding game Nate put in 100% effort and never backed out of any challenges.

Discipline: Rory Hanly (10C) – In a very even game, Rory put his heart and soul into his match, never giving up and controlling the midfield.

Determination: Sam Johnson (10E):  Always playing at 100% and always looking to improve.

Prep School man of the match:

James Coutel (5A):  After a disappointing loss last time against NC, James led the boys all game with his repeat defensive efforts on Nudgee’s attack. He generated several opportunities for his teammates throughout the game.

Hugh Reeve (6D):  For his continual effort and teamwork throughout the match. In a game where many boys found the back of the net, Hugh demonstrated a selfless attitude all game to ensure others scored ahead of him.

This week, we head away to Ipswich Grammar School (IGS). They are a powerhouse of GPS football, narrowly finishing second in the last two GPS First XI Football competitions. A win will seal the premiership. At Nudgee we had more than 200 Churchie boys barracking for the team. Let’s turn out in even bigger numbers and be the 12th man as the boys look to make history.

Alex Rados
Director of Football

Tennis

It was a frustrating day for our round six clash with State High. Early rain prompted discussions between the schools with the endeavour to do what we could to get the boys on the court and playing. Ultimately the final decision was made to call off all matches as it did not seem likely that any play could take place safely. We understand that families wished for an earlier decision before leaving home; however, the programme took every available minute in the pursuit of getting matches underway even if slightly later in the day. Once the decision was made notifications and emails were sent out immediately.

The First IV and Second IV decision was held back to see if the rain would clear and the First IV match could not have been called until 10 am. Unfortunately, no play took place for our top side either.

I thank all the parents, coaches, staff and players for their understanding on Saturday morning and for all who made the journey to their venues in hopes that the boys could represent the School for round six.

This week we play Ipswich Grammar School in our GPS round seven matches, as well as Nudgee College and Gregory Terrace in some supplementary battles. We will also offer some internal matches to some of our teams that will not have opponents this week. Our junior teams are at home and our senior years will head to Ipswich.

Again, I would like to remind you of our end-of-season function. The link to register is available on myChurchie – Tennis. We would like to see as many Years 7 to 12 boys and their families there as possible.

Ian Malpass
Director of Tennis

Chess

Last week, 18 senior students participated in the Term 2 Brisbane Secondary South Interschool Tournament held at Morris Hall. Several students and teams experienced large degrees of success in this notoriously difficult tournament. These achievements are listed below:

Students:

• Jayden Ooi and Zerui Xing,  7/7 in A Division (joint first)
• Sravan Renjith,  6.5/7 in A Division (third)
• Alex Renwick, Quan Nguyen and Ryan Liaw,  5/7 in A Division (equal fourth)
• Max Yan, Owen Yu and Alex Ko,  4/7 in A Division (equal sixteenth)
• Caleb Chow,  4.5/7 in B Division (equal eighth)
• Soren Dehdari, Benjamin Lacy and Lucas Ding,  4/7 in B Division (equal eleventh)

Teams:

• ACGS 1, comprising Sravan Renjith, Jayden Ooi, Ryan Liaw and Zerui Xing,  25.5/28 in A Division, placing first
• ACGS 2, comprising Alex Renwick, Quan Nguyen, Max Yan and Benjamin Wu,  16.5/28 in A Division, placing third,  three points behind BSHS’s Premier team!
• ACGS 3, comprising Owen Yu, Alex Ko, Lachlan Chow and Aadit Arora,  14/28 in A Division, placing equal sixth
• ACGS 5, comprising Caleb Chow, Soren Dehdari, Benjamin Lacy and Lucas Ding,  16.5/28 in B Division, placing third.

Congratulations to these young men and others who attended this tournament. Some images from the tournament are attached below.

A big thank you to Chess Support Group President Derek Bond and Vice-President Peter Xing, who generously volunteered their time to operate the sausage sizzle during the day. 

Our next interschool tournament this term will be the Term 2 Brisbane Primary South Interschool Tournament, held in Morris Hall on Wednesday 12 June. Teams will be announced once enrolments have closed. Further volunteering opportunities will also be available on this day. The link will be posted on myChurchie this week.

Max Condon
Director of Chess

Debating

In May, the National Schools Debating Competition was hosted in Adelaide, and Churchie couldn’t have been prouder to have fielded half of the representative Queensland team. Felix Mutinelli and Caelan Smith headed down, and in an incredibly tight field of competition from states that have seen Queensland dominate in the last decade, had a strong week of debating. While Queensland, alas, didn’t come home with any big wins, we couldn’t have had finer representatives of our values and culture.

While the GPS season wrapped up in Term 1, Churchie’s debating community involves year-round training, development and culture building. One significant part of this comes from our participation in the QDU Brisbane Secondary School competition, in which our teams hone their skills against a truly diverse field of independent, state and coeducational schools. Good debating is flexible and responsive debating, and a benefit that QDU offers is this diversity of team, who all bring with them unique approaches and knowledge bases with which to defend their cases. We are very proud to already have a strong contingent of teams winning three out of four preliminary debates, qualifying them for a berth in the Finals series in Term 3. With that, well done to our Senior A, Senior B, 11.1, 10.1 and 9.1 teams for consolidating their success; we look forward to hearing how our Year 7 and 8 teams fare in their round of competition in week seven.

Term 2 has also seen the kick-off of our open-series training opportunities. We are blessed to have depth and breadth of talent among our seniors and alumni, and beginning in Week 5, our older speakers have run incredibly well-developed and insightful training sessions on case prep, stakeholder analysis and identification, and principles. I am so proud of the work done by seniors Felix Mutinelli (no doubt bringing back the expertise he gained in the National Schools Debating Competition!), our captain Dario Lim, and Year 11 Sean Hansen, who skilfully worked with our junior speakers on stakeholder analysis. I encourage any Churchie boy, whether he participates in a competitive team this year or not. to come along and join our training sessions, with advanced development running on Tuesday afternoons in MS26, and our beginner development sessions running on Wednesday afternoons in MS26.

Our goal with debating this year is to go beyond being smart and well-behaved: it’s a sport that demands that we are also good. This goodness is generated by the lifelong friendships developed through the State Team Trials process, the generosity of mentoring younger speakers, and even enjoying a laugh and camaraderie with the opposition after a challenging debate. I’m keen to see our culture become enriched with expertise and friendship and look forward to the QDU Finals.

Rebecca Hewitt
Director of Debating