Central North women’s coach Dale Beattie was “stoked” by his sides effort at the weekend’s women’s sevens Country Championships and will be hoping they can build on that when they play in Newcastle on Sunday
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The Kookaburras finished third after upsetting defending champions Central West in the Plate final 7-5, Ashlee Knight finishing off a 60m effort to level after they had trailed 5-nil at half-time.
“It was a really good run from forward Sally Bowe. She broke the line and in the tackle offloaded to Ashlee,” Beattie said.
Rhiannon Byers slotted the conversion to give the Kookaburras a two point lead they held on to until the final whistle.
Byers and Knight were two of the Kookaburras best over the weekend, and along with Shana Povey named in the NSW Country merit squad selected from the championships.
Earlier in the day the Kookaburras had lost their semi-final to eventual champions Hunter 17-5 in what Beattie reckoned was the game of the tournament.
He was thrilled with how they performed, his only real complaint their illdiscipline.
That hurt them.
“Three yellow-cards in five games is too many,” he said.
“That was probably the big difference.”
Hunter scored twice while they had players off the field.
On Saturday the Kookaburras beat Central Coast 17-15 and Western Plains 32-nil before falling to Central West 20-7 to finish second in their pool.
Beattie said they really dug in defence on Sunday, particularly against Central West.
“It was very physical and there was nothing between the two teams,” he said.
Their defence was really strong over the whole weekend.
“There were times in attack where we made too many errors at crucial times but defensively they really stood up,” Beattie said.
“We just need to continue to work on our fundamentals and also our discipline.”
The Newcastle tournament is the second of four UNE Lions Discovery Tournaments.
Following Sunday a 24-strong wider training squad will be named to participate in a high performance camp and play the University of Queensland in Armidale in late May.
Knight will skipper the squad in Newcastle with Brooke Field, Sharnee Magner, Emma John and Sarah Stewart getting their chance to impress.
Central North squad: Emily Adams, Sally Bowe, Brooke Field, Meg Huber, Sharnee Magner, Lauren Nott, Shana Povey, Lucy Prudden, Sarah Stewart , Ainsleigh Thomas, Emma John, Ashlee Knight (captain), Chelsea Hancock
