The Southport School coach Mike Wallace was full of praise for a Churchie side that upset TSS in round two of the 2021 GPS competition last weekend.

In their first competition outing in 2021, Churchie scored five tries including a double to outside centre Larzlo Sword to hand TSS their first loss of this year’s campaign.

“It was a really physical game of footy and both teams were really willing,” TSS coach Mike Wallace told Rugby News.

“Churchie did a really good job of slowing us down and limiting our ability to play with speed, which was smart by them.

“Then when they had opportunities, they took them, so full credit to them.”

Churchie turned heads during the trial period when they beat defending premiers BBC and continued their good form against TSS after an opening round bye.

“They are clearly in the top two or three sides in the competition, without question,” Wallace said.

“If you say it’s an ambush, you’re kind of assuming that they burgled the game off us but that wasn’t the case. They used the extra week to prepare really well for Saturday and they executed their plan.

“In the GPS competition, the biggest challenge is finding a way to do that every week.”

Wallace said there were still plenty of positives to take out of his side’s five point loss.

“Some of our decision making could have improved and that’s something we’ve worked on already this week.

“We played some pretty good footy as well, it’s not like we played poorly. I thought we played pretty well but Churchie were just better on the day.”

TSS have a bye in round three, then host Ipswich Grammar a week later in round four.

Despite dropping their first game of the season, Wallace said it was far too early in the year to focus on the premiership race.

“To be honest, we’e not thinking about that at all. We’re just focused on our next game, that’s the only goal, and we’ve got a busy few weeks ahead preparing for Ipswich Grammar.

“Ipswich are a big, physical team. They’ve had a couple of unlucky results and I think they’ve probably played better then their results suggest.

“They’ve got a lot of speed and they’re a team that can hurt you from anywhere so we’ll need to be right on top of our game defensively.”

In other results, Gregory Terrace continued their strong start to the season beating Brisbane State High 20-5. Nudgee also held off a fast finishing BBC outfit to win 15-12 and Brisbane Grammar defeated Ipswich Grammar 17-12.

Nudgee and Gregory Terrace lead the competition after two wins, with TSS, BBC, Churchie and Brisbane Grammar all two competition points behind.