IT is a long way from the Women's World Cup in France, but St Joseph's Regional College would have liked to have VAR at their disposal.
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The Port Macquarie high school bowed out in the under-15 girls division of the Bill Turner Cup following a five-goal thriller in the Mid North Coast zone final on Monday.
Jess Watts found the back of the net with two high-quality strikes although it was Great Lakes College who progressed to the next stage with a 3-2 victory, but it wasn't without controversy.
With the scores locked at 2-all midway through the second half, the ball appeared to go over the goal-line at the Great Lakes end of the ground, but the officials thought otherwise.
Despite that 50-50 decision not going their way St Joey's coach Michael Morson admitted his team still had their chances.
"I thought it was a good game, (Great Lakes) are a strong team," he said.
"They moved the ball probably better than us in patches of the game and tried to get around us in the first half and that's how they got their first goal unfortunately."
St Joseph's hit the outside of the left post within the first 90 seconds and that was a sign of things to come despite Watts' wonder strikes.
She also had a chance to send the game into extra-time with the final kick of the match, but it wasn't to be.
"Both teams were of equal level and they got the money today," Morson said.
"We had plenty of chances in the second half to put it away and it took a good free kick from them to win the game so that's the way it goes."
Watts was a constant threat for St Joey's up front, but there were no real standouts.
"They all really ran their guts out to try and compete for the ball and try to move it forward to give us opportunities to score," Morson said.
"We just didn't finish in the second half."
Great Lakes opened the scoring within the first 10 minutes before the home side settled into their work to take the lead in the shadows of half-time.
The Forster school then equalised with one of the final kicks of the first half.
It was that sort of afternoon as history repeated with St Joseph's also bowing out of the competition at the same stage last year.
"They were a bit stronger this year which is a credit to them and hopefully they go even further in the competition," Morson said.
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