Schools from Crescent Head to Laurieton competed at the Mid North Coast All-Schools carnival for the right to progress to the finals in Sydney on August 8.

Northern New South Wales National Rugby League game development officer Pat Preston said there were four divisions who competed on the day.

“We have open A and open B and 10A and 10B which is based on school size and school population,” Preston said.

“It’s not graded, it’s on the size of the school so if you’re an A-school you have more than 300 (students) in your primary school.”

Preston was “excited” about the numbers of teams in the open divisions in particular despite some of the more fancied schools being unable to attend.

“In the Open B division we had seven (teams) and (in the) open A in 12s we had another eight sides,” he said.

“We had really good numbers of 11 and 12-year-old’s and then we had 10 sides in the 10s so it was a nice cross-section and goes to show the strength of rugby league.

“A few of our usual schools couldn’t make today so it could have been even bigger.”

The development officer also said junior numbers had increased in the Group 3 competition this season.

“The junior league has had its highest registrations total in the last 15 years,” Preston said.

“Across the board their numbers are strong especially in our mod ages (6-12) and both Port clubs have record numbers this year for their registrations so we’re happy about that.”