Tallon Smith

The Central Burnett Rugby League welcomed in the New Year on the back of a big win after the Biggenden Warriors confirmed their entry into the competition for the 2025 season last month.

The Warriors’ return will see the club field a side for the first time since 2018, a season which saw the club make the finals before being unable to form a side the following season.

Newly elected Warriors President and club stalwart Gavin Berrie said that the club’s AGM last month produced a strong committee for the small-town club.

“The AGM went very well, all positions, even more positions than I thought would exist, were filled on the night,” he said.

“[It was a] very good crowd, a lot of interest, which was fantastic.”

As for where the club is looking to play both in 2025 and beyond, Berrie said the Central Burnett competition is the best fit for the Warriors, with only a slight change needed to the competition’s successful cluster format to accommodate the Biggenden club.

“The Central Burnett competition, currently there’s four teams in the competition, Biggenden will be the fifth team, so they’ll just run it as someone will have a bye each week and look at probably playing doubleheaders so all four teams meet at the one place on that day,” he said.

“Basically it’s the same format [to this year], just an extra team.”

After playing in the neighbouring Northern Districts competition and the Central Burnett Rugby League until entering recess in 2018, Berrie said the club’s story was looking like that of many others across regional Queensland, but the return of some locals to the town and a renewal in interest in getting the local footy side back together led to the surprise resurrection of the club.

“Biggenden played in the Northern Districts league quite a few years ago, and sort of just fell out of that [due to] a lack of numbers more than anything,” Berrie said.

“That’s just the way towns, country towns are going, but there seems to be more people moving back into these country towns. 

“There just seems to be a lot more interest which is really good. 

“There will be players coming in from other places, but not a real lot, most of them are locals.”

In an era where overbearing employers increasingly attempt to restrain apprentices and employees from playing contact sport on weekends out of the fear of injury, a key feature of the Biggenden story is the support of the town’s major employer in getting the game restarted, with the owner actually proving the catalyst for the team’s return to the playing field.

“The local meatworks in Biggenden employs quite a lot of people, and there’s a few Fijians who work at the meatworks, so they’re very interested in playing,” Berrie said.

“The owner of the Meatworks, Peter Gibbs, was the person that actually approached me about looking at getting football back and going.

“He was the one that said, well, you know, you’ve got a lot of boys that need something to do, and they all love football so that sort of was the start of it.”

The stunning renaissance is in stark contrast to the picture painted by then-President Justin Vicary in 2018 in an interview with News Corp’s Central and North Burnett Times.

“We really struggle for volunteers,” Vicary said of the Warriors’ predicament at the time.

“It is hard on those volunteers doing it game in, and game out.

“Don’t get me wrong, our small band of helpers are greatly appreciated – they rock.

“In my eyes country rugby league is dying without volunteers; if more people became involved it lightens the workload.”

However, after knowing what it is like to go without local rugby league, one can be sure Biggenden will be right behind their Warriors again in 2025.

All four fellow CBRL clubs, Eidsvold, Gayndah, Monto and Mundubbera, are expected to field teams in the A-Grade competition again this year, with Gayndah aiming for an eighth consecutive title when action gets underway in autumn.

(Cover Photo: Biggenden Warriors Facebook)