After losing a handful of their regular first graders and some key players among those, this season was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Waratahs.
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Even new coach Matt Wilson admitted he thought it might take a season or two for them to be pushing for the silverware again.
How wrong he, and many others were, with Waratahs upsetting Flames 3-2 to claim just their third Tamworth women's first grade premiership, and first since 2016 when they incidentally beat Flames 3-nil.
They had the previous year defeated Olympians to win the silverware for the first time.
Involved in both their previous triumphs, skipper Katrina Rekunow spoke afterwards about how special it was to lead them to the title.
"I'm blown away," she said.
Unfortunately she was unable to receive the silverware, or her Tamworth rep player of the year award, as she had to go pretty well straight to work after the game.
Not really given a chance, she said they felt like they didn't really have anything to lose: "so we could go out there and play hard and enjoy it".
She was so proud of the way the younger girls particularly stepped up this season and throughout the finals series, but did admit at times she didn't think they would be inscribing their name on the trophy.
"We never once had the same team. It was quite difficult I guess to find a team each week," she said.
They had to consistently call on players from the lower grades.
It was something keeper Lou Mulligan also touched on. She said it was a real club effort and reflected on the spirit in the club.
Mulligan was herself filling in with regular keeper Lara Taggart away, and joked that at 44, she never thought she would be keeping in a first grade grand final.
The win was made all the more special by the fact that she got to share it with her daughter Bianca.
"There is nothing more special," she said.
As was the case throughout the finals, the victory was built on desire, grit and desperation.
They really hustled Flames to win turnovers and chased down everything.
"That 50-50 ball and just the desire to get to the player with the ball and break that down is just tremendous," Wilson said.
"Those little things alone it just stops their momentum, stops their flow and that was very evident today and it really worked well."
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They were understandably a bit nervous early and conceded an early goal.
"[But] Once the nerves settled and we started playing our hockey and started getting into the structure and the way we wanted to play the game flowed from there, and the result was the goals that we got," he said.
They scored twice in the last 10 minutes to go into the break up 2-1.
"We just came back out after half-time and just a bit slow and it probably took that goal (Flames scored just a couple of minutes in) to kick them back into gear and really chase that ball hard again," Wilson said.
Abi Schimann epitomised the never say die attitude that he has often spoken about, to put them back in front a couple of minutes later.
"That's how she scored that goal, not giving up," he said.
"She had the shot and followed the rebound up."
"It was just tremendous, particularly in a young player to see those things."
"That desire" in the second half then got them home.
For Flames it was an all to familiar story.
"It was same old, same old," coach Barrie Pritchard said.
"We didn't convert our opportunities when we should have."
"The quality in the circle wasn't good enough for us and our ball distribution let us down through the middle."
He thought when Tegan Smith equalised early in the second half it might spark them.
"We got the momentum back and we just lost it straight away," he said.
"As a unit we've got to defend better when we get the momentum."
From there they "just turned the ball over too much".
