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Proserpine Colts. Photo supplied: Rhys Ward
The Whitsunday Raiders’ junior and senior clubs are working together to keep young rugby union players in the game and get the senior men’s team back on the field.
The clubs have historically operated separately, with juniors playing in spring after the rugby league season, and the seniors playing in the winter. However, recent years have even seen the senior men unable to field a team because they were short of players.
“We need to have better pathways for 16, 17, 18-year-olds who want to stay in the sport,” said President Whitsunday Junior Rugby Union Tim Oberg.
That push helped establish the new under-20 Proserpine Colts side, which had already started strong under former Raiders player turned coach Rhys Ward, beating Moranbah 18–7 on debut.
“Our hope is that a number of those boys who are playing Colts this year will make themselves available to go on and play senior rugby next year with the senior men’s Raiders team,” Tim said.
Giving young players more chances to play beyond the Whitsundays is also part of the Raiders’ plans. The club is looking at ways to get juniors on the field through winter, when they can pursue representative opportunities with the Mackay Region Stingers and Queensland Country.
That ambition is already taking one young Raider overseas, with 13-year-old Leshara Costello selected for an under-16 side touring London and Paris in January 2027. The Raiders have helped her family raise funds for the trip, backing her chance to play overseas just four years after she took up rugby union.
Back on home turf, Tim simply wants to bring the junior and senior Raiders closer together, giving the junior players people to look up too, and the seniors kids to mentor.
“If you’ve got a strong senior club, then the younger players will look up to those players as role models,” he said.
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