Queensland Country Heelers
 |
|
| Union | Queensland Rugby Union |
|---|---|
| Branch | Queensland Country Rugby Union |
| Founded | 1902
(Queensland Country team)
2000 (as Qld Country Heelers)
|
| Region | Queensland Regions, excl. Brisbane |
The Queensland Country Heelers is an amateur rugby union football team that represents the regions of Queensland outside of Brisbane. The team is selected by the Queensland Country Rugby Union following the annual Queensland Country Championships, and plays other representative teams from around Australia.
Queensland Country adopted the Heelers logo featuring an Australian cattle dog in 2000. These working dogs, also known as "Queensland Heelers", are well known throughout regional areas of Queensland. The team colours are blue and white.
Regular fixtures include City-Country matches, where Queensland Country play against Brisbane sides, and the "Battle of the Borders" Cup against the New South Wales Country Cockatoos.
The Queensland Country Under 20 team competes in the Southern States Championship and also plays occasional matches against other representative sides. Prior to 2008, country colts teams at under 21 and under 19 age levels were fielded in national and state competitions.
The Queensland Country team first played against Brisbane when the Queensland Rugby Union started the Country Week competitions in 1902. Brisbane narrowly won the first match 16–15 and Country won for the first time, in the eighth season, in 1908.
Country Week carnivals became sporadic with the rise of rugby league after 1909. but the strength of Queensland's country rugby prior to 1914 was considerable. In 1912, a North Queensland team drawn from Cairns, Charters Towers, and Townsville defeated Queensland's representative team by 21-3. In 2013, a Darling Downs team also secured a win, by 6–0, over the Queensland side that had won three out of four matches with New South Wales.
The start of the First World War brought rugby union to a halt in Queensland after 1914. The QRU was re-established in 1928–29 but the game languished in country regions for many years. It was not until the 1960s, when new competitions and clubs were started in Toowoomba and Warwick, that Country rugby began to develop. Annual trials and more regular fixtures for the Queensland Country team were arranged. In 1964, Queensland Country defeated Brisbane's Sub-Districts by 25-14 and surprisingly held NSW Country to a 14–14 draw. The Queensland Country Rugby Union was founded in 1965.
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