The Cobar Roosterettes’ 2023 Castlereagh League Tag season is over a week early but what a season it’s been!
Under the guidance of captain/coach Kayla Hasson, the mostly young side made great improvements over the year and can be justly proud of their third place finish this season, which is the team’s best result since entering the Castlereagh competition in 2018.
“I am so proud of where we were at the beginning of the year, to preseason and now the girls are the whole package,” Hasson said following Saturday’s preliminary final loss to Narromine.
“I’m just really stoked and a proud coach of the 22 girls we’ve got registered this season.
“They all bring something to the table at training, off the field and on the field,” she said.
The Cobar side came up against a very formidable and determined Narromine Jets team at Tom Knight Memorial Oval on Saturday afternoon and it was the Jets who put an end to their season when they beat the Roosterettes
36-14.
The visitors got off to a fantastic start running in two quick tries in the first 10 minutes to have the upper hand over Cobar.
Sarah Morley closed the margin somewhat when she picked up a loose ball to dive over and score first points for Cobar.
Morley also converted her try.
Narromine however continued to call the shots and the Cobar defenders found it hard to contain their quick breaks from the ruck and, by half time, the Jets were ahead 18-6.
The Roosterettes failed to make a good start to the second half and two successive penalties gave Narromine good field placement which resulted in another try.
The Cobar side regathered to put plenty of pressure on Narromine’s try line, however they were unable to find a gap to score.
Soon after the Jets were streaming back down the field with their fullback Jacana Powell running away to score her second try of the match and push the margin out to 26-6.
The Jets were on a roll and scored two more tries in quick succession to blow the margin out to 36-6.
The Roosterettes then wrestled the ascendancy off the Jets and, while they may have been down, they definitely were not out.
They continued to put pressure on the Narromine try line.
Roosterettes’ veteran Bianka Jacobson proved to be in the right place at the right time when she pounced on a loose ball and scooted over to score.
A brilliant run of play down the right wing, initiated by captain/coach Hasson, saw Georgia Boland streak away to beat two defenders.
Boland scored out wide untouched and closed the margin to 36-14.
The pair linked up again in the final minutes of play however they couldn’t replicate the magic and the final score remained unchanged at 36-14.
Hasson said all her players had very good games but when pressed she gave extra praise to: co-captain Jacobson for her on-field leadership; Phoebe Pursehouse for a lot of chase tagging and work on the edge; Brianna Watson for giving her all for the team; Morley for her team talk and work ethic; and to Boland who, she said, does everything she’s asked and gives 200 per cent every game.
