Sunday, March 19, saw the North Stradbroke Island Rugby League and All Sports Club (Straddie Sharks) hosting their annual televised leg of the Intrust Cup. The match between Queensland’s mighty Wynnum Manly Seagulls and those ‘not so mighty south of the border type’ Seagulls from Tweed Heads was a battle to be remembered. Not only for the game itself with the final result going to Wynnum Manly 24 – 18, but for the bringing together of our Police Liaison Officers (PLOs) from various areas.

For 12 years North Stradbroke Island had Senior PLO Thomas Govenor based on the island however with recent changes to the PLO structure, Tommy is now working out of Wynnum Station. This has seen his community focus spread to more areas within the wider Bayside Patrol Group such as involvement in Project Booyah, attending more local schools and eating heaps at numerous community events.

Now I know Tommy pretty well and can vouch for the fact he wasn’t too keen on leaving Straddie. He misses the place like the refs missed that 7th tackle in the Cowboys game a couple years back. So if he figured if he can’t be there and give the community as much time he would like, he could take another approach and soak the island with a whole bunch of PLOs for this Intrust Cup game.

In policing, PLOs much like us coppers have our own patch we need to look after and silly little words like regions, districts, divisions and patrol groups often pop up to prevent us migrating to better placed gelati hunting grounds.

So when Tommy acquired the services of PLOs from not only the Bayside Patrol Group (Bay Islands, Redland Bay, Cleveland, Capalaba and Wynnum Stations) but also from the Upper Mount Gravatt and Centenary Patrols Groups, he brought to the island a melting pot of cultures, skills and experience not seen since the NRL Indigenous All Stars game in early February.

Not being happy with only the Brisbane Region being represented, me ol’ mate Tommy figured he’d delve a little deeper and even managed to scavenge some PLOs from another region altogether, being the South East Region.

Hopefully your still following me after that twisted geographical policing lesson but anyway these PLOs deserve a pat on the back or in Tommy’s case, a rub of his tummy. Not only was this the first time our local PLOs have worked in unison with the Logan District PLOs but it was the first time they worked together and got saturated in torrential rain.

Unlike the players on the field running around staying warm and the spectators watching from within the shelter of their vehicles and the club itself these PLOs had to snuggle up close (see pic). I’d love to say they enjoyed the sunshine soaking up the rays on the face but nup! – the only ‘soaking up’ that went on was their socks soaking up rain whilst they walked around.

But seriously, these guys and gals really do an awesome job week in and week out within their own communities and each and every one is welcome back to Straddie anytime. So a round of applause if I could please for:

Senior PLOs Thomas Govenor and Jacquelene Carter O Leary representing the Bayside Patrol Group.

Police Liaison Officer Doug Peachey representing Inala.

Police Liaison Officer Tameka Johnson representing Upper Mount Gravatt.

And finally Senior PLO Gina Waites and PLOs Cheyenn Beard and Jason Evans representing Logan Central.

One more thank you goes to Tony Brown and his team at the Straddie Sharks for hosting a great event.

‘Officer Sandy’