Boulder gun to play in upcoming interstate clash against SA Country

Boulder midfielder Koopah Todd has complemented a strong representative display at last week’s annual country championships in Perth as the lone player from the Goldfields Football League named to represent WA Country against South Australia on July 25 at Barossa Park.

Todd was this week included in a 23-player team that is keen to reverse WA’s fortunes against SA, after last year’s defeat by 32 points at Sullivan Logistics Stadium.

That result backed-up SA’s victory in 2024 against WA by 43 points at Adelaide Oval, and they hold a commanding 9-3 advantage over their rivals since 2011.

Todd, who was part of last year’s WA Country team, said the step-up from GFL ranks to interstate level was significant and on par with WAFL standard.

“When you go to the country championships, it’s a step-up because the skills are at another level, they’re bigger bodies, bigger brawn and everyone’s hitting the ball hard,” Todd said.

“But playing in that State game last year was another step-up again — from playing league at West Perth, I found it very similar, as far as the body shapes and the overall ball movement which is very quick, and means you have to certainly be on your game to keep up.

“I’d say it’s pretty much even to playing a league (WAFL) game.”

After the GFL lost all four games last week in the top division at the country championships and were relegated, Todd backed the side to bounce back strongly.

“It was very disappointing to come away with four losses because we took away a side that we all thought would be competitive in division one,” he said.

“However, in some of the games, we just felt that we lacked that final touch — it wasn’t as if we were out of all the games we played in.

“Skill errors translated to some easy goals for them (opposition teams), and then we probably dropped our lip a little bit in terms of giving up a couple of easy goals in a row.

“But we were never out of games completely — we had plenty of inside 50s and probably lacked a little bit of experience up forward.

“We certainly had other boys who stepped-up to play massive roles for the side but maybe didn’t have the experience to be competitive at that level.

“When you think about it, the top three goal kickers here are (Sam) Stubbs, (Scott) Worthington and (Michael) Mallard, and we didn’t take away any of those players.

“And then we had to rely on (Hugh Gallagher medallist) Zak Barrett to pretty much ruck the whole carnival as well.”