Following its Olympic debut and the Australian womens golden efforts interest in the game has spiked.

Not just among those already playing rugby but athletes from other sporting backgrounds.

That was highlighted at Barraba late last month when over 100 players attended the the NSW Waratahs 7s Discovery Day for Central North/New England.

“It was the second largest discovery day in the state,” NSW Rugby North West Development Manager Garry Walsh said.

Over half of the attendees were girls, and even more encouraging, around half of them “first timers”.

The discovery days form part of the new NSW Waratahs 7s program and doubled as trial for the Central North U15s, U17s and U20s side to play in the NSW Waratahs 7s State Championships.

They’ll be held for the 15s and 17s at Coffs Harbour on October 29 and 30, and the 20s in Newcastle on November 5 and 6.

Walsh is coaching the 15s girls, Tony Mills the 15 boys, Dale Beattie the 17s girls, Kylie Dawson the 17s boys, Jeff Watt the 20s girls and Tom Davidson the 20s boys.

The day at Barraba was rigorous and started off with a series of tests straight out of the national 7s program.

“Then we scored them on catch, pass, tackle and tackle contest,” Walsh said, with their results all going into a state database.

The squads will train again this weekend at various locations, with the focus at moment on enhancing their skills rather than specific team play.

The Central North junior and senior associations have both chipped in money to help fund the program, which could potentially lead a path to Tokyo in 2020.

“It’s all really exciting,” Walsh said.

For the girls it is really just the starting block with plans to run a full field 7s competition next season in conjunction with the Central North mens competition.

So far Tamworth, Pirates, Barraba, Inverell, Moree and Gunnedah have all indicated they will have sides.

Over two years in the making it is still in the formation stage, but Walsh is hoping to get an open and U17s competition up with the younger players playing in the Friday night competition.

The NSW Country Eagles and Sydney Rays have meanwhile been confirmed to host the semi-finals fixtures of the 2016 Buildcorp NRC on the 15th and 16th of October.  

The grand final will be a night-time affair for the second time in three seasons with this year’s decider to be played on Saturday, October 22 following the third and final Bledisloe Cup clash between the Qantas Wallabies and New Zealand at Eden Park in Auckland. 

Despite their upset loss to Queensland Country on Saturday, the Eagles are locked in to host one of the semi-finals. They remain on top of the ladder with a round remaining ahead of the Rays, Perth Spirit and Melbourne Rising.

The Rays are also safe in the top two after their round six trouncing of UC Vikings. The Western Sydney Rams’ shock Horan-Little Shield triumph over Melbourne Rising on Sunday kept them within reach of an unlikely semi-finals berth, while UC Vikings are the only other side out of the current top four who remain in the hunt for finals action.

NSW Waratahs CEO, Andrew Hore said it was extremely pleasing to see all three sides with the opportunity of playing finals.