A couple of victories at the weekend by a couple of the Coast’s battling sporting sides deserve special mention today.

Let’s start with the Sunshine Coast Stingrays, who set a couple of new club records by beating University 41-24 in Brisbane on Saturday afternoon.

The six tries they scored was more than they have managed in any previous game in the three-and-a-half seasons they have played in Premier Rugby and it was the first time the ’Rays have gone past the 40-point mark.

Halfback Matt Little’s four tries will also take a place in the record book and, from memory, it’s the first time the Coast has beaten Uni.

More importantly, the bonus point victory lifted coach Glenn Panoho’s side off the bottom of the ladder and gave them a great boost at the start of the second half of the season which features many more away trips than games at Stockland Park.

Finishing anywhere but last would be progress for the ’Rays after three wooden-spoon years in the elite Queensland competition.

They have two wins this year and at least four should be a reasonable target, especially if they can stay relatively injury-free throughout the remainder of the season, and Morgan Turinui can make an appearance or two.

More was expected from the ’Rays this year and they have provided more.

The floggings that characterised their first couple of seasons have been eradicated and replaced by defeats where, with only a couple of exceptions, a win had been a possibility during some part of the afternoon.

Thrashings have marked the Maroochy Northshore Roos’ season in the AFLQ Pineapple Hotel Cup, but they were able to sing the team song for the first time after overpowering Springwood by 72 points at Fishermans Road on Saturday.

Although their long-awaited new club rooms are in the process of being built, there has been precious other good news for the Roos.

It all started when they appointed a senior coach who didn’t turn out to be who they wanted and a parting happened before the season proper began.

A top-five slot will be out of reach but it’s important they don’t let this year just slip away.

If they want to attract new talent for ’09, it will be significantly easier if they are not at the bottom of the table at the end of ’08.

Let ‘Parko’ go
There comes a time where you have to let someone go and that time came a while back for the Sunshine Coast and surfer Joel Parkinson.

However, one local television news services still loves to cover just about every move “Parko” makes and calls him “a Caloundra surfer” with great regularity.

He might like coming back to Caloundra every now and then, and we can be proud he first learned to surf here, but the world No.2 has lived on the Gold Coast for a decade or so.

Why not hand over the time promoting Parko’s latest achievement on someone else who’s a bit more local?

There’s plenty of Coast-based surfing talent who would love some extra publicity.