BILLY Slater Oval became a field of dreams for more than 200 primary school youngsters who took to the turf this week determined to follow in the footsteps of the ground's namesake.

Youngsters from Tully to the Torres Strait took part in the regional rugby league titles at Innisfail on Sunday and Monday, with selectors whittling the numbers down to 28 for a final trial in Cairns.

The trial and clinic at Mann St produced a 17-man Peninsula team to take part in the state primary schools titles in Cairns next month.

Coach Brendon Alexander, principal at St Clare’s school at Tully, said Peninsula was "over the moon" to be hosting the titles.

"The boys will be able to get a lot more family and friends from school and supporters here and as it’s in the holidays they’ll be able to pull their mates along and hopefully we’ll get some biased home support," Alexander said.

Choosing the Peninsula team was no easy task. "The standard’s been really high. The kids have played really hard which has made our job difficult but that’s a good problem to have," Alexander said.

"I’m fairly satisfied we ended up with the best 17 we could for the 12-year-olds this year.

"There’s some big units at 12, I don’t know what they get fed. I wouldn’t like to tackle them myself."

The sheer area of the Peninsula region makes training before the titles a tough task but Alexander hoped to organise a clinic as well as a trial against Northern region before the next Northern Pride home game.

"We’ve got two boys in the 17 from Thursday Island, we’ve got one boy from Weipa, one from Cooktown, there are a couple from Tully and everyone else in between – we cover the whole region," Alexander said.

"It’ll be a challenge getting all the boys together but I think that can bond them together a bit too, they think, ‘we’ve got to make this work’."

Peninsula primary schools team – 1 PJ Ahmat (Western Cape College, Weipa), 2 Dane Bertuola (Good Counsel, Innisfail), 3 Jayden Walker (Good Counsel), 4 Bacho Salam (Mossman SS), 5 Aaron Bertuola (Good Counsel), 6 James Oliver (Hambledon SS), 7 Tim Ambrym (Innisfail SS), 8 Darcy Swain (Bentley Park College), 9 Zak Blair (St Clare’s, Tully), 10 Amey Odo (Tagai College, Thursday Island), 11 Lachlan Payne (Ravenshoe SS), 12 Denzel Briscoe (St Francis Xavier), 13 Mitchell Michael (Cooktown SS). Interchange: 14 Michael Smith (St Clare’s), 15 Hayden Quinlan (East Innisfail SS), 16 Mahonri Eteru (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Thursday Island), 17 Nathan Traill (Whitfield SS).

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