It's on again - Round 1 of the Brisbane GPS season. The 9 team, school competition that breeds more professional rugby players than just about anywhere else in the world.
You can already smell the frying onions, Dencorub, farting school boys and the "Channel-no. 5-wearing" Churchie mothers standing on the sidelines.
Will it be another competition dominated by Nudgee and its 30 year rugby indoctrination and recruitment program, or will the shiny guys at Churchie finally stop talking up their chances and get the job done on the field?
Or will TSS do what they have done for the last 10 years and knock over Nudgee when we least expect it or flog a BBC or Terrace when no one predicts it?
Who knows? But this is my stab at Round 1:
State High Vs TGS at BSHS.
As already aluded to on this fine blog, you will be hard pressed to get a cold coke and a lolly bag passed its used by date down at Fursden Road on Saturday, but you might just catch a pretty good game of rugby or two.
The State High boys have looked good in some of the trials and have some pretty flashy, mighty midgets in their back line. Rest assured they will make some of their bigger, more fancied opponents look a little silly by the time the season ends.
The fact they do their training in their thongs helps no end and I recently saw an article outlining how Ewan Mckenzie was introducing similar sessions at upcoming Wallaby camps.
The Toowoomba boys won't know where they are early on and despite a nice afternoon off the range enjoying the sunshine in what is commonly known as the jewel of the southside (Carina), they'll go back up the hill with a loss under their belt and food poisoning from the 4 year old Sausage Rolls in the canteen.
State High by 8
BBC Vs TSS at Southport
Not sure who will have more ink on them on Saturday, the rugby scholarships from both teams or the TSS Dads - who will still be talking about how good their Boogie Board surf was earlier in the morning - as the teams run on.
Easily the match of the round, but only if BBC's much-vaunted forward pack actually gets on the bus at Toowong on Saturday morning. They had huge trouble doing this against Terrace last Saturday and the bloody game was at Miskin Street!
TSS will be slicker than that old bloke down at Surfers Beach with the spray gun and well coached too. I see them getting up by a G-string cord.
TSS by 3
GT V Grammar at Terrace
Not sure if anyone will actually watch this game, as I imagine a lot of the Terrace dads, (walking around in red parkas and thier sons' school hats), will have thier deck chairs facing the new grandstand and be busy taking happy snaps of themselves in front of it...
If they do catch any action they'll see those two big centres from GT carve a rather large hole in the Grammar back-line, who will actually improve when the lads from the Chess fixtures arrive after halftime and slot into the back row to add some weight to the Grammar scrum
Terrace by 18
Churchie V IGS
If the parents from Ippy are actually allowed by ACGS Security to park anywhere near the surrounding suburbs of Churchie on Saturday morning then IGS may field a full team. Chances are though they'll have to park just near the Story Bridge, so it will be touch and go on numbers...
Ippy will be up against it from the get go, but as usual the boys from the Switch won't give up easily. A closely fought first half will have the Churchie supporters doing Waratah impressions, as they scratch their heads trying to work out how much a GPS Premiership really costs and where their wallets went.
But after some nice halftime sandwiches and a pep talk from a couple of ex Wallabies, sanity will prevail.
The Ippy boys will get handed a discount voucher for a Wickham Terrace plastic surgeon and a Brazillian Wax joint at Bulimba on the way out and should reach thier cars by 7.30pm.
Churchie by 16.
Enjoy it all!!