If the inaugural QSL season proved anything, it’s the Sunshine Coast Fire and Brisbane Strikers may need to look elsewhere to test themselves.

In the short term, at least.

The Fire have enjoyed a super debut season, of that there is no doubt.

You can’t do too much more than win the premiership-championship double, which they sewed up with a 1-0 victory over Brisbane Strikers in the grand final.

But it also has to be said that some of the teams that they beat along the way are still well below state competition standard.

That fact was highlighted perfectly in the preliminary final, when the Fire annihilated North Queensland 7-0.

By making that match, the Razorbacks are supposedly the third best team in the competition – not a good sign for the league.

The Strikers were the only team to beat the Fire this year. Twice.

No one else even came close.

Sunshine Coast scored 73 goals and conceded just 11 (plus-62 differential) in its regular season matches.

Several of its wins were by five goals or more.

Football Queensland is calling for expressions of interest for more teams to join the league next year.

I would suggest they should look at getting the other eight teams in the competition up to scratch first.

Until that happens, I think introducing a ‘Champions League’ style contest involving the three southern states would be a great idea.

In my competition (which I would call the East Coast Challenge), the premiers and champions from the QSL, plus the New South Wales and Victorian Premier Leagues, would face off in a six-team end-of-season extravaganza.

If the premiers and champions are the same team, as was the case with the Fire, their grand final opponents (Strikers) would get a start.

Each team would play the four sides from outside of their competition, with the top two playing in the final.

It would be a great reward for success throughout the season.

Plus the New South Wales and Victorian leagues are top quality competitions and would provide the Fire with the serious challenge they craved this year.

NSW held their grand finals on the weekend while Victoria is up to the preliminary final stage, so it would tie in perfectly.

Go the Pies!
Last week, I wrote about how I would be heading south to take in some footy finals this weekend.

Happily, my Pies are still in the hunt after a great interstate win against Adelaide in the first week of the finals.

My NRL team, the Canberra Raiders, squeezed into sixth spot after winning a glorified game of Oztag against the Bulldogs on Sunday.

My itinerary for the weekend is as follows – Western Bulldogs v Sydney and Collingwood v St Kilda at the MCG on Friday and Saturday night respectively, followed by Melbourne Storm v New Zealand Warriors at Olympic Park on Sunday.

Hopefully I’ll have some cracking footy experiences to tell next week.