TAMWORTH and New England hit the state title trial to Wagga Wagga this weekend for the U13s Girls’ Championship.
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Following on from their 15s success last weekend, New England will field a side in Division 2, while Tamworth had two making their way south yesterday.
The As will play in Division 1 under the charge of Hayden Lewin.
Lewin has only been coaching them for a couple of weeks. He took over when Helen Willis was promoted to an assistant coaching role with one of the state sides.
They finished mid-table last year and will be hoping to improve on that.
“They struggled to score goals last year. Hopefully we can change that this year,” Lewin said.
They’ve got the potential to.
“We’ve got Amber Whitney, Maddie (Lewin) and Ash (Chaffey) playing up front,” Lewin said.
“We should be able to get some goals in with those girls.”
Whitney, particularly, provides a lot of speed up front.
He said they were pretty strong across all the lines.
“We’ve got some good players in each of the backs, midfield and strikers,” he said.
“Hopefully we can use those strengths.”
The big thing will be working hard as a team.
They’ve got a tough one to start their campaign, with Sydney East at 8.40 this morning.
“The Sydney sides are typically strong,” Lewin said.
“That first game tomorrow will tell us where we are at.”
The wet weather leading in has forced a bit of a revamp, with organisers forced to move all games onto turf.
There were several games scheduled for grass.
That has meant shorter games but also no games on grass for the Bs.
Gabbi D’Ambros coaches what is a relatively young side.
Two of the girls – Bianca Mulligan and Sarah Hoffman – went away with the North West PSSA side earlier in the year.
D’Ambros said the weekend for them would be about learning and a bit of fun, and developing their games.
“More than half the side haven’t played rep before,” she said.
The shortened games will make things a bit more difficult for them.
They’ll have to find their game pretty quickly.
She said they should be pretty strong defensively.
“So hopefully we can score some goals,” she said.
New England will be the first of the three sides to hit the pitch.
They play Far North Coast at 8am.
The Tamworth Bs will follow at 10.40am against Sydney South 2.
Following the U15 Girls’ Championships, Tamworth’s Lori Edgar and Billie Mitchell and New England’s Hayley Lennon and Lily Neilson were selected in the U15s squad for 2017.
