There can be no disputing it now.

The Sunshine Coast Fire are damn good.

So good, they are undefeated on top of the Queensland State League ladder and are the conquerors of a talent-laden Queensland Roar A-League squad which was only missing a couple of first-team regulars at Gympie yesterday.

There had been a view, emanating mainly from the Brisbane football community, that the QSL wasn’t that strong in its debut year, and the Brisbane Premier League was still the top competition in Queensland.

Well, none of the Brisbane clubs, or a Gold Coast representative team, have beaten the Roar during their A-League pre-season trials campaign and the Fire was last night celebrating a 1-0 win in front of a bumper crowd of around 2500.

As far as upsets go, it’s like the Sunshine Coast rugby league team beating the Broncos.

The Daily’s football columnist, Trevor Morrison, who has played in the Brisbane competition, rates the best clubs in the QSL as equal to the top clubs in the capital.

The strugglers in the QSL are really struggling but the quality is there in the QSL’s top four.

What Noel Woodall and his Fire players and coaching staff have achieved so far in 2008 is quite remarkable.

They have just about sealed a top-four berth already and, with a four-point lead on the ladder, could yet end the home-and-away rounds on top.

Hopefully their home crowds at Stockland Park, which haven’t been up to expectations, will build to a level their results, and play, deserves.

Bulls battling
There needs to be some serious thinking done about how to make the Wide Bay Bulls a more competitive force in senior representative rugby league than what they’ve been in recent seasons.

The Bulls ended the QRL Divisional Carnival in Gatton at the weekend as one of only two teams not to win at least one of their two matches.

The only other non-winners were the South-West Mustangs, who put 55 points on the Bulls in the annual Kissane Cup match a couple of weeks ago.

At Gatton, the Bulls lost 38-16 to the Central Capras on Saturday before a 22-10 loss to the Southern Kookaburras yesterday morning.

They’ll be battling to get one player named in the Queensland Rangers representative team.

Improving the Bulls to a level where they’re a chance to win the divisional title will take some doing but here’s one thing that could help.

Instead of selecting a coach for Wide Bay, leave the spot open and offer it to the coach of the winning side in the 47th Battalion Trophy match between the Sunshine Coast Falcons and Bundaberg.

This year, the Falcons, with Des Allen as coach, smashed Bundy and the 19-man Bulls squad which played at the weekend included 16 Coast players, most of whom have also been playing together in the Centenary Cup.

At the Bulls, they had a different coach, with different ideas and different tactics, in Damien Lindeberg.

Why not stick with the coach who gets the most players in the Wide Bay rep squad and get some continuity going?

And take a trip up to North Queensland, which seems to have no problem finding talented rugby league players.