Warialda’s Rhiannon Byers and Armidale’s Ellie Fordyce will play for the NSW Country Corellas at next month’s Southern State Championships.
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The 23-strong squad to contest the championships at Wagga Wagga on April 8 was selected following Saturday’s NSW Country Women’s Championships at Forster where Hunter maintained their mantle as champions.
Byers and Fordyce were part of a Central North side that while not registering a win acquitted themselves well.
“It was a great weekend,” coach Dale Beattie said.
“It was a highly competitive carnival. The closest carnival I’ve been involved in.”
Fatigue was the thing that really hurt the Kookaburras.
“We picked a squad of 26 to go away and last week we lost eight players for various reasons,” Beattie said.
That left them with three players on the bench. By their final game that was down to one.
“Our first three games we were 0-all against Hunter, 7-all against Illawarra and 12-nil against Mid North Coast. We went on to lose all three in the second half because we had nothing left in the tank,” he said.
It was a very young side too with over half of the side under 19, which Beattie believes augers well for the future.
Fordyce is no stranger to the Country jersey being involved in the Corellas program last year. Byers is meanwhile coming off a very successful year in 7s, which saw her represent NSW.
Next up for the Kookaburras is the Country 7’s Championships late next month.
Trials for that side to contest those will be held at Barraba on Sunday April 9.