MID North Coast heads into this weekend’s Country Championships at Campbelltown full of confidence of improving on their performance last year.
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With a team of players selected from Port Pirates, Wauchope, Gloucester and Forster, they believe they can better their one win 12 months ago.
Captain Kathleen Ostler said it would be the culmination of around seven months worth of training and for some, that seven months had been an impressive effort.
“A lot of these girls have been training for the last seven months so they’ve really committed to the cause,” she said.
A handful of former Port Macquarie players have travelled from Sydney and Newcastle every weekend to attend training.
“We’ve had a couple of girls from Newcastle train with us that were from here originally,” she said.
“Another one of the girls from Port originally moved to Sydney as well and she’s been coming up here every weekend to train with us.
“Tia Tyler has been an absolute legend.”
A lot of these girls have been training for the last seven months so they’ve really committed to the cause.
- Kathleen Ostler
Port Pirates dominate the squad with at least eight which comes as little surprise due to their undefeated start to the season.
Ostler believed they would be better prepared for a tilt at this year’s title after gaining valuable experience last year.
“I think we’ve got a really good team this year compared to last year because it’s way more experienced,” Ostler said.
“The sevens comp ran last year and that helped us this year because the girls are a bit more confident with understanding how rugby works.
“Last year we learnt as we went.”
Mid North Coast will play matches against Hunter, Illawarra and Central West on Saturday.
“Hunter has won it for the last 19-odd years and Illawarra’s been giving them a good run for their money over the last couple of years as well,” Ostler said.
“But we’d like to beat Hunter.
“Illawarra’s got a big team so we’re hoping they might be a bit tired by the end of it.”
Everyone thought we were going to be pushovers last year but we weren’t.
- Kathleen Ostler
Mid North Coast managed one win at last year’s carnival and Ostler believed they were well positioned to improve on that.
“We only won one game last year, but the rest of them were really close,” she said.
“We got three girls selected for the Country team and I got player of the carnival as well, so we did really well.
“Everyone thought we were going to be pushovers but we weren’t.
“We want to win the whole thing this year; that’s our aim, but our priority is beating Hunter.”
The Country team will be announced after the final game on Saturday.
