CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF LOCAL RUGBY LEAGUE
Sunshine Coast Falcons rlFC Information supplied by the club
The State League Falcons Football Club was first formed in 2005 with the intention to begin playing in the Former Origin Greats League (FOGS) and the FOGS Colts U20’s competition. At the invitation of the Brisbane Rugby League, the club entered a senior team and a Colts U20’s team in the then second tier competition of South East Queensland. The Falcons were established with a plan to eventually play in the State League Queensland Cup, so it could provide a pathway for Sunshine Coast junior players to reach higher levels of the game. The coach of the first senior team was Des Allen and the first Colts coach was Brad Henderson. While Peter Boyce sat as the first Chairman and Don Oxenham as the first CEO. The Falcons club remained in this competition for three years before it was accepted into the top tier of the Queensland Cup State League Competition in 2009. The team entered into a feeder team agreement with the Manly Sea Eagles before the start of the 2009 Queensland Cup season. This event saw the re-naming of the Falcons to become the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles. Up and coming Manly young guns of the time such as Daly CherryEvans, Trent Hodkinson and Tony Williams would regularly fly to the
Sunshine Coast each weekend to play for the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles. Coached by Brandon Costin the Sea Eagles went on to win the 2009 Queensland Cup premiership in their debut season with a 32 – 18 win over the Northern Pride. In 2010, the Sea Eagles were knocked out during the semi-finals and at the end of this season the feeder affiliation with the Sea Eagles sadly ended. This was due to a ruling from NSWRL that banned NSW teams from affiliating with QLD clubs. Without a feeder team alliance and full time players the Club struggled through the 2011 – 2013 seasons. In 2014, in consultation with local league representatives, the Sea Eagles changed their name back to the Falcons to re-align with the local Sunshine Coast representative sides. The club once again began to feed its excess players into the local SCGRL competition to help build the local A-grade competition. A new NRL feeder team deal was signed between the Falcons and the Melbourne Storm during the 2014 season that is still running today. The deal has already seen three local juniors signed to full time contracts with the Storm. Current NRL stars such as Suliasi Vunivalu, Curtis Scott, Joey Stimson, Jahrome Hughes first earnt their stripes
sunshine Coast falcons v Capras, 2018
playing for the Falcons. At the start of the 2015 season, the Falcons also signed on with major partners Vantage Homes and Vantage Building Group. In the last four years, the support of this company has helped the club excel through its sponsorship of the local Sunshine Coast Gympie A-grade Competition. In 2016, the Vantage Homes Falcons finished third in the Intrust Super Cup, after getting knocked out in the grand final qualifier. However, the club stayed strong and signaled to its rivals that it would be a strong returning force the following year. In 2017, the Falcons were back and flying high. The team made it all the way to the grand final at Suncorp Stadium against the PNG Hunters. The Falcons got off to a blistering start, but the PNG Hunters were relentless and scored a try in the last minute of the game to beat the Falcons 12-10 in front of the crowd of 11,000. In 2019, the Falcons head into the season with a new coach Eric Smith as well as a raft of new player signings looking to go one better than the 2017 result!
About the club Club Established 2005 CEO Chris Flannery Chairman ashley robinson Treasurer neil Cooke Directors alan marr, gordon oakes, Kane stegman, Kerrod Walters, tim Howard P
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www.scfalcons.com.au sunshinecoastfalcons
Captain Dane Hogan in action, 2018
The Vantage Homes Falcons would like to thank their 2019 Major Sponsors
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SunShine CoaSt Rugby League CENTENARY/1920-2019