The St George Illawarra Dragons were in attendance to help facilitate the Southern NSW Championships at Croome Road Sporting Complex, Albion Park recently.
The Dragons, in conjunction with NRL Development, turned the venue into a rugby league cauldron with the Finals Day of the respective Ben Hornby, Ben Creagh, Shaun Timmins and Steelers Shield competitions.
Schools from a far as Eden, Camden and Broulee along with a host of local Illawarra and South Coast schools converged on the complex to make their charge to the big stage and battle it out for the silverware.
The earlier games saw the girls in the U14 and U16 League Tag competitions take part in the finals with both divisions taken out by Holy Spirit College Bellambi who showed their dominance by taking out both fixtures.
It was then over to the boys with the Shaun Timmins Shield. Vincentia High School who made the trip north up the M1 Princes Highway proved too strong for a competitive Holy Spirit College of Bellambi in a tight match that went right down to the wire.
Next up was the Steelers (U14) Shield Final and it was Kiama High School who took out the match over fellow Group 7 school Shoalhaven High School.
In the U15 Ben Creagh Shield Lake Illawarra High School won the match convincingly but only after a scare from Ulladulla High School who ran out to an early lead.
Man of the Match Sam Hooper of Lake Illawarra took control of the match with a dominant performance to steer his side to victory.
It was then time for the Opens Boys to take centre stage to decide who would be taking home the Ben Hornby Shield.
The decider was between Edmund Rice College Wollongong and Shoalhaven High School.
It started out an end to end affair until the Shoalhaven defence finally cracked and Edmund Rice went on with the job from there.
With a host of representatives in the Edmund Rice team that played in the Steelers SG Ball Grand Final side this year, it was always going to be a tough mountain to climb for Shoalhaven HS and it proved just that with Edmund Rice being crowned champions for 2016.
