The first time the tournament has been held it pitted Tamworth against teams from Newcastle, the Central Coast and Woy Woy.

After being placed third after the pool games, the Sean Hofman coached side played off against Central (Newcastle) on Sunday morning for a place in the final but went down 10-2.

Hofman was thrilled with how his side performed.

“It was a fantastic weekend for a very young side,” Hofman said.

“Most of the team are 12 and 11. There’s a couple of top age players.” 

“It was a really good building weekend for them.”

That building is in the immediate future next month’s State Championships in Bathurst. They’ll be held in Bathurst the weekend before Christmas.

Hofman said the weekend was a great hit out for those.

“It was probably perfect timing for us as a new side, just to get together and work on the basic principles,” he said.

He was really impressed with their “constant ability to keep improving” – if they had a bad quarter or half they worked hard to pick their game up and improve, and their defence.

“We’ve been working at training on our full press defence and doing a lot of technical stuff on body position,” he said.

The carnival was their first real chance to test that out in a competitive environment. They were a bit slow at the start but picked it up well over the weekend and really improved.