The third QMRS Memorial Cup will be held on July 21 at Caledon Resource’s Cook Colliery in central Queensland.

Competition organiser Lindsay Creighton said he expected between six and nine teams to compete.

The competition is open to teams that didn’t compete in the Australian National Underground Competition last year. These teams instead will advance straight to the EK Healy Cup where they will compete against the top four from the Memorial Cup.

The 37th EK Healy Cup will be held at Anglo Coal’s Grasstree mine on September 8 at Singleton. The top four teams from this competition will advance to the nationals.

The national competition will also be held in Singleton during October.

Creighton said this year the number of exercises had been extended with three two-hour rounds during the day, with breaks between.

The underground component will be restricted to two hours and new this year will be a CABA exercise for points and a team skills exercise designed for fun, but will not go towards points.

Exercises will include first aid, firefighting, CABA, team skills, an equipment practical exercise and theory examination.

Creighton said the last few years of competition had been difficult numbers-wise because of mines closing and others in ramp-up stage.

“We haven’t had a great influx but I think that will change in the next year or so,” he said.