In a remarkable comeback from injury, Zac Frazer has made the statewide Mal Meninga Cup after a year off with a busted ACL, MCL and fractured patella.
The second rower is one of 16 Beaudesert Kingfishers selected for squads across the Mal Meninga Cup and Cyril Connell Challenge Queensland Rugby League competitions.
Record for Kingies
In what is believed to be a town record, 16 Beaudesert Kingfishers players have been selected for the Mal Meninga Cup and Cyril Connell Challenge statewide competitions.
The Mal Meninga Cup (under 18s) and Cyril Connell Challenge (under 16s) are the highest competitions players under 18 can reach in the Queensland Rugby League, before progressing to the Queensland Cup.
In the Mal Meninga Cup, Dylan Haack, Hunter Hawkins and Jacob Kurz made the Souths Logan Magpies and Zac Frazer and Thor Barnes made the Tweed Seagulls.
In the Cyril Connell Challenge, Tyler Mearns and Levi Bannan made Souths and Caleb Cresswell, Ethan Jackson, Fuifui Taitoa, Hayden Watson, Lincoln Gibbons, Madden Falaniko, Patrick Knight, Reece Gorman and Rhys Aldridge made Tweed.
Souths and Tweed have dominated the Mal Meninga Cup since 2018, both sides taking the premiership trophy twice.
Brenden Frazer, who is heavily involved with the Kingfishers and is a coach for the Cyril Connell Tweed team, said it was remarkable.
“Usually, you’re lucky to get one or two kids into a squad let alone both squads, so to have 11 boys in Tweed then 5 in Souths is huge – there’s no higher competition for those age groups in Queensland,” he said.
One player who was particularly happy to make it is Brenden’s son Zac Frazer, who has been out with injury since the week before the 2021 finals.
Frazer, 17, has played for the Kingies since he was six and played in the Cyril Connell Cup.
The dedicated player is doing year 12 over two years at Keebra Park State High School – a feeder school to the Gold Coast Titans – to focus on his football while doing a traineeship for his cert 3 in civil construction.
He said it had been a big road to recovery.
“It just means a lot – my parents devote a lot of time and energy to me, and I’ll be forever in debt to them for the support they’ve given me this year – I appreciate them and I’m really grateful to them,” he said.
“It just means a lot of my hard work has paid off – it wasn’t all for nothing.”
