LAST Saturday’s NSW Country Women’s Championships in Tamworth were a big step towards revitalising women’s rugby in the region.
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Central North coach Dale Beattie and New England coaches Tom Davidson and Morgan Martin were both thrilled with how their sides performed in what was for many of their players their first real taste of 15s action.
For the Kookaburras, it was their first time playing at the championships for a few years and for the New England side a long time.
“We were very happy with them,” Martin said.
“They showed great spirit and showed great character to keep going.”
He said the individual talent is there, which was emphasised by two of their players – Ellie Fordyce and Kelly Taylor – making the Country (Corellas) squad. It was more a matter of having not had the opportunity to play much 15s.
Having coached the successful Hunter side last year, he also had a pretty good idea what they were up against.
“As I was saying to them afterwards, they played against two Australian internationals, two Australians 7s reps, one girl who’s played full-time in Europe and multiple state reps,” he said.
He said they improved a lot over the four games.
“The biggest improvement was their defensive structure and communication, and starting to play to the attacking structure we were trying to play,” Morgan said.
There will be many more opportunities for them to pull on the boots before season’s end, with the New England women’s 7s competition set to kick off in the next few weeks.
The competition will feature sides from St Alberts, Robb, Armidale, Wright, Barbarians, Glen Innes and Gwydir and correspond with the men’s draw, with the respective women’s sides playing between third and second grade, and then second and first grade.
Beattie said he couldn’t be happier with the efforts of his side, particularly in defence.
“The defence was great,” he said.
They didn’t concede a try against New England, and only one against Central West and Illawarra.
“Today showed how good the skill set is,” he said.
“Fatigue got to us a little bit. We were a bit light-on in the backs.”
They lost two before the championships and another two during the day.
He had a “very young” squad that was still learning the 15s game.
“A lot of the girls have a sevens background,” he said.
While that serves them well as far as some of the skills go, there are some that are unique to 15s.
For instance, sevens doesn’t really have scrums.
He said they were looking to build a competition and were also looking at playing in a few different tournaments.
It was hard for him to single out anyone, but it was hard to go past Moree’s Ashleigh Walker.
She was superb. The selectors agreed, with the half-back one of two Kookaburras named in the Corellas squad.
Kookaburras captain and number eight Katrina Sanger also made the 30.
Their program starts later this month in Newcastle with a game against Sydney.
They’ll then contest the Southern States Championships in Wagga on the June long weekend and the ARU National Championships at the end of June.