Colquhoun enjoys a trifecta of State honours

From the SA U18s to the senior State team, the Tanunda Magpies’ Sam Colquhoun will this week join only a select few names to wear the Croweaters jumper at a third level when he represents SA Country at Optus Stadium in Perth.

By PETER ARGENT

In 2012 Sam Colquhoun donned the South Australian state jumper as a member of Brenton Phillips’ elite SA under 18 team, impressing many judges with his composure, judgement and decision making as a 17-year-old.

In 2018, after being a part of one of the most grueling SANFL Grand Finals in history the previous September, where over 250 tackles were laid, and becoming a SANFL premiership player with Sturt, Colquhoun again received the honour of representing SA, this time in the traditional SANFL v WAFL West End State Game.

On Saturday at Optus Stadium in Perth, Colquhoun will be wearing the red, gold and blue for a third time, now as a member of the SA Country side which take on WA Country in the curtain raiser to the Fremantle verses Sydney Swans AFL game.

He is among only several players to have ever worn both the SA Country and SANFL state jumper, among them Todd Miles, Leigh Ryswyk and Rodney Maynard.

Colquhoun is also a perennial big time performer at this level.

In 2012, Colquhoun was South Australia’s MVP, in a team that included fellow future AFL prospects Brodie Grundy, Sam Mayes, Ben Kennedy, Tim O’Brien, Tim Broomhead and Jimmy Toumpas.

In the 2018 Haydn Bunton Cup contest against the WAFL, Colquhoun compiled a 30 possession, one-goal game on the wing to be high in the best players against the Sandgropers at Adelaide Oval.

He is keen to perform well on Saturday.

“While I played in Perth a couple of times over the journey, this will be my first gig at the new Optus Stadium,” Colquhoun told SANFL.com.au.

“It is nice to have a Sturt contingent, former team mates in Jack Penfold and Rory Taggert travelling over to Perth to represent the state alongside me.

“There is certainly plenty of state pride on the line every time you pull on that jumper.”

Colquhoun is in his second year as playing coach at the Tanunda Magpies in the Barossa, Light and Gawler competition.

He shared the Schluter (and Mail) Medal as the competition’s best and fairest player with 2022 SA Country player Steve Burton from South Gawler last season, with the Magpies making it to the Preliminary Final.

Football started for Colquhoun at Birdwood, before he moved to Angaston as a junior where he went on to play a senior A grade game while still in the junior program at Central District.

In his MVP year, he also played in the Bulldogs last senior premiership, a Reserves grand final win in 2012 at Football Park.

After he was selected in the 2013 Pre-season Draft, he debuted at AFL level that season.

In a four-year tenure, which included a season on the sidelines with an ACL reconstruction, he played 16 AFL games.

Deciding to move across to Sturt in 2017 proved fruitful as the prolific ball winner became a premiership player in his first season, and he was awarded the PT ‘Bo’ Morton Medalist (Sturt’s best and fairest) in 2019.

He was the Central Zone dominant midfielder during the recent Think! Road Safety SA Country Championships in the Barossa Valley, awarded the team’s MVP, with the Zone finishing runner-up for a third consecutive year.

Colquhoun’s state representation is not confined to football as he a was also an accomplished junior cricketer, being a leg-spinning all-rounder who played for the SACA state schoolboys (Under 15s) in Sydney and Under 17s at the National championships in Tasmania.

The SA Country v WA Country game will be played at Optus Stadium on Saturday July 22 at 4:20pm (SA time). The match will be live streamed for free on SANFL Now, www.sanflnow.com.au or the SANFL Now App.

A team of 23 players will travel to Perth for the game on Saturday. View the full squad below.