Central North talent has again caught the eye of selectors with 14 aspiring youngsters in line to don the Country gold later in the year after impressing at Cresent Head on the weekend.
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Following on from the under-12s, 13s and 14s Country Championships played in Tamworth the previous weekend, the Kookaburras under-15 and under-17 girls and opens boys sides suited up and produced another fantastic showing.
The under-15 girls fell just short of the silverware, finishing runners-up, while the under-17 girls placed third and the open boys fifth.
On the back of their performances over the weekend Erika Maslen, Safia Arranz, Wilmie Van Swalkwyk, Shanti Kennedy and Laura Sadler were named in the 17s girls Country squad, Eliza O'Donnell, Sarah O'Neill, Abbie Kent, Brooke McKinnon, Charlotte Eather, Mia Taylor and Anastasia Martin the 15s girls and Mitch Watts and Toby Maslen the open boys.
Eather was also singled out for individual accolades with the centre named the best back of the championships for the 15s girls, which was played as 10s.
"She really dominated the tackle area and scored a multitude of tries," Kookaburras 15s coach Dave Maher said.
The Kookaburras went through their pool games undefeated and won their semi-final convincingly but came up against a strong Hunter outfit in the final.
"They tried hard but Hunter with their larger population were just too good for us," Maher said.
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Despite around half the side being bottom-age for the 15s Maher, knowing the talent they possessed, went in with high expectations.
And the girls didn't disappoint, how well they played underlined by the fact that they had the most amount of players from any zone selected in the Country squad.
Maher highlighted their team-work, and strength in the contact area in defence as two of their strongest attributes over the weekend. They really dominated their opposition at the breakdown and turned over a lot of ball.
They will now turn their attention to the State Championships on the June long weekend.
Former Wallaroo Kate Brown, who was Maher's assistant on the weekend, will take the coaching reigns for the tournament which will be played as 15-a-side, with Maher stepping back to the assistant role.
Jeremy Maslen expressed similar sentiments to Maher about how the 17s girls, which he coached with Andrew Bowden, performed and believes third doesn't reflect how well they played.
"They played really well, they were brilliant," he said.
Similarly a young outfit, several of the side were stepping up from last year's victorious under-15s Kookaburras side, and "outsized by a long way" he said they just "dug deep".
"Our little forwards showed such big hearts. They just kept going," he said.
He also noted the way they played as a team.
"They just bonded really well and took that out onto the field," he said.
The two games they lost there was only a try or two in it.
Maslen said they were initially looking at it as a bit of a development year. But from their first training session the improvement was phenomenal.
