Waratahs scrambled a share of the points with Olympians in their Tamworth women's first grade clash on Sunday courtesy of some late individual brilliance from Maddie Cryer.
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With just over four minutes remaining in the game and Olympians holding a 2-1 advantage, Cryer surged through the middle of the field and finished well to tie the scores up at 2-all.
Waratahs coach Matt Wilson conceded they were probably a bit lucky to wrangle a draw. For a fair period in the second half they couldn't seem to get the ball out of their defensive end.
But they scrambled well and managed to keep Olympians to only a goal advantage.
Wilson said it was a pretty similar story late in the first half although Olympians were able to find the net then and make it 1-all after Anita Collins, Cryer's twin sister, had given Waratahs the lead with a "good piece of individual skill".
"They play well together. They seem to find each other very well," Wilson said.
"Particularly on a long pass, Anita seemed to be able to find her sister."
Generally though they really struggled for rhythm in attack.
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"Probably the first 20 minutes was good but it just didn't flow. It was disjointed and disconnected," he said.
Because of that then they weren't able to "really put any offensive pressure on them".
A big contributor to that was that they only had four or five of their regular first graders on the park.
Wilson did make mention of young goalkeeper Bianca Mulligan. She hadn't strapped on the pads for two months but stepped up with the side down two keepers.
"Keeping in first grade for the first time in a long time she did very well," he said.
"They put her under enough pressure."
Olympians coach Andrew Farmilo was understandably frustrated. They shouldn't have been in the situation of clinging to a one goal lead with the amount of opportunities they had in the second half.
The first half was he thought pretty even. But in the second they certainly had the weight of territory and circle entries, their hustle in the midfield earning them a lot of possession.
"We didn't execute in the circle," Farmilo said.
"We either went for a shot and it wasn't on, or we weren't patient enough to make the extra pass for the easy tap-in."
He said the midfield was good and thought Flo Davidson and Ella Mitchell were their best.
In the earlier game Services defeated Tudor Wests 2-nil.
Services coach Josh Worpel said it was a much improved performance on the last few weeks from his side defensively, especially in the first half.
"I thought defensively we were on pretty early," he said.
"Our communication was good and when we overlapped we had players in the right spots ready to release to."
He felt they controlled the whole game.
"We didn't give them a sniff," Worpel said.
"Especially against Tudors, they are a confidence team. Especially being a young team you give them a sniff and they grow in confidence."
But while the defence was on song the attack didn't quite click. It was just "a little bit off".
Worpel wasn't sure exactly of the reason, but they just didn't seem to be getting into the right positions in the circle and couldn't seem to put that final pass together.
He said Gabbi D'Ambros was really good for them as was Sarah Dicker and Kim McLean.
