Ajantha Abey

Team Background: 

The Victorian Honeyeaters enter State Shield this year as a brand new team! Founded as a B Team for Victoria, matching the Bluebottles for NSW, this will be their first foray onto the state field, and they are the second home team in this year’s tournament. 

Interview with Team Leadership 

We first spoke to Captain Mark Kelly, who had this to say about the team: 

We’re incredibly excited to be bringing a second Victorian team to State Shield, we’ve all worked hard and we’re raring to show Australia what we can do! 
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Team History: 

New South Wales has always had one of the largest player bases in the country, right from the inception of quidditch in Australia back in 2011. After the first two rounds of the three 2016 State Of Origin series between NSW and Victoria, the final round was set to be held in Sydney featuring the debut appearance of the Queensland Thunderbirds and NSW fielded a second team affectionately termed the B-Tongues. They would play against Queensland as a roughly equal match, while the NSW A team faced off against Victoria.  Thus, the NSW B Team was formed. With the depth of players in NSW at the time, they were victorious against the Thunderbirds in their debut showing, though not nearly at the level of the two A teams. Absent from the 2017 State Shield held in Brisbane, the B-Tongues or “B-est” team returned in 2018, faltering at first against a much improved Queensland during pool play. They came back strong in the finals series to win 2-0, proving an adaptability and level of skill that showed them to be a solid team in their own right. Now officially known as the NSW Bluebottles, they enter the 2019 competition looking to continue their streak against an ever stronger Queensland side, face a new rival in the debuting Victorian Honeyeaters B side, and see how much they’ve narrowed the gap between themselves and the top teams. 
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What Is State Shield?

Quidditch, beginning in Australia in 2011, grew rapidly in NSW and Victoria, with most teams in the country starting up in Melbourne and Sydney, with only a few up north in Queensland and out west in Western Australia. As quidditch became more and more competitive and rivalries developed between Victorian and NSW teams, there were calls for a new level of competition, something that would allow a further level of top tier quidditch in Australia, facilitate competitive training for Australia’s best athletes heading into World Cups, and answer once and for all which was the dominant state in quidditch. read more

Team History: 

The Queensland Thunderbirds joined the state competition in the third round of the 2016 edition of the title, when NSW Blue Tongues and Victorian Leabeaters were playing their finals series and the relatively new Thunderbirds faced off against the NSW B team. Coming away from their first experience of state competition winless but rapidly improving across the series against NSW B to play the last game in range, the Thunderbirds came into their home State Shield in Brisbane 2017 fighting hard and extracted a narrow win against Victoria. This demonstrated that they had done much to close the gap between them and the more developed states but still had a way to go. Going into 2018, the Thunderbirds were now much more experienced and had their first win against the NSW B squad, however the Victorians and NSW Blue Tongues were careful not to underestimate the growing Queensland force. The NSW Bluebottles were also able to adapt and eventually win the finals series against Queensland 2-0. As a younger state in the development of quidditch in Australia, Queensland have always struggled to match the NSW and Victorian A teams, with less experienced players and less players on the National “Dropbears” Team. However, with the rapid expansion and development of Queensland quidditch in the last two years and the steady improvement of the Thunderbirds, the writing is on the wall for times to change. 
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Team History: 

The NSW Blue Tongues is the other team who have been taking part in Quidditch Australia’s state level competition since its inception at the start of 2016. Competing against the Victorian state team in this original State Of Origin series of three sets of three games, the Blue Tongues won the second series 2-1 but overall came a narrow second, winning four games to Victoria’s five. When the state competition evolved into the single State Shield event in 2017, the Blue Tongues went winless across three games against the Victorians. They were able to come back last year with five straight wins against the Victorian Leadbeaters to finally claim the title for NSW. As the other long-established quidditch state in Australia and with a rapidly growing playerbase, NSW remains Victoria’s greatest competition and rival in the competition They present a strong team of state and Dropbear veterans supplemented by promoted players from the state’s B team, who will be looking to level the overall State Shield score to 2-2 against the Victorians. 
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Logo Background: 

The endangered Leadbeater’s Possum is Victoria’s faunal emblem. The species is found only in Victoria and lives primarily in the ash forests and subalpine woodlands of Victoria’s central highlands, with a small lowland population to the east of Melbourne.

Team History: 

The Victorian Leadbeaters Quidditch Team has been a part of Australia’s state competition since its inception in early 2016 when Quidditch Australia’s State of Origin series first started, eventually developing into what is now State Shield. 2016 saw the Leadbeaters put up a strong performance across three series of three games against the NSW Blue Tongues, going 2-1 and 1-2 in the first two series and winning the decider 2-1 in Sydney. The single competition in Brisbane of 2017 saw the Leadbeaters again victorious in the finals series against NSW, only dropping one game in the preliminary stages to Queensland. Many of the 2017 squad went on to play for the national Dropbears squad in the 2018 Quidditch World Cup. While prevailing against NSW B and Queensland at the 2018 State Shield in Newcastle, the tournament saw a 0-3 loss in the finals series to the NSW Blue Tongues who were consistently able to catch the snitch in all of their nail biting in-range games. This made for only the Leadbeaters’ second series loss since 2016, which the team will be keen to avenge this year on home soil. 
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Day 2 of State Shield (Sunday 6th October) will feature a Kidditch session!

Kidditch, or Youth Quidditch, is our friendly non-contact version of the sport for kids and new players that is easy for anyone to have a go at!

We will be running a session for all ages (don’t worry, if we have a mix of young children and adults we will separate!) from 12:45 to 1:30 pm. If your child loves Harry Potter, loves playing sport, loves trying new things, and/or has always dreamed of playing quidditch, this is their chance! read more