When you have played an integral role in a success story you can't help but walk around with your chest out.
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Wauchope Thunder Rugby Union Club president Paddy Bowen would have been one of the first people to celebrate Naomi George, Danielle Buttsworth, Teleah Waitoa and Lauren Nott's recent selection for NSW Country.
He's been there since day one with the growth of women's rugby his ongoing project for the past six years and now the results are coming.
"You reap what you sow and for some of the people who started the club, they planted a seed for a tree they'd never sit in the shade of," he said.
"It's building that legacy and giving girls a platform who want to play pretty serious rugby and take it to the next level.
"On the other side, it's also the girls who don't want to take it to the next level and have fun, but play serious club rugby. It tops off the program and all the work that's been done before them."
While Bowen has a role as a NSW Country selector, he admitted he left most of the decisions up to the other members of the selection panel.
They saw what he saw.
"All the Mid North Coast girls who were selected really shone out to the other selectors," he said.
"It's good to see other people noticing the core skills the girls had in their game and they've probably got that from the previous coaches."
Bowen said Nott's influence as women's coach at the Thunder had also played an important part.
"Having Lauren there as coach now all the little one-percenters are coming through so it's good to see other external selectors are seeing that as well," he said.
"It didn't happen overnight; we've been building for it since 2015 so it just shows that year on year the girls' program is still growing which is good.
"We didn't treat them as female rugby players, we treated them as rugby players and that's the nature of the beast. If you treat them like female rugby players you can open up a can of worms."
The Thunder quartet will head to Adelaide for the Senior National XVs championships at the end of September where they will gain an insight into a semi-professional set-up.
It will be the first time the Corellas and the men's team - the Cockatoos - have toured together and Bowen knows they will learn on the run.
"We hold a pretty high standard for NSW Country so we get that support from the top down in a coaching perspective because they rely on us because it feeds into Super W and into the Wallaroos," he said.
"If the girls perform in Adelaide they could gain Super W selection."
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