Last year it took until midway through the season for Tamworth to post their first win of the New England women's 7s competition.
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Fast forward 12 months and the Magpies are flying high after clean sweeping their season opener against St Alberts on Saturday.
In what was is a promising start, after winning the first game 15-5, they then blew the students off Tamworth Rugby Park in the second, running out 38-nil victors.
Co-coach Blake Hamilton had spoken heading into the season about this year's Magpies squad being probably the strongest since the the sides incarnation two seasons ago, and couldn't have been happier with the first-up performance.
He said it was really good to see "a lot of hard work" pay off.
"We've got a lot of girls coming out of the woodwork from all around the region to come and play for us, [and] to start with a bang for the season (was really good)," he said.
There was plenty to like about what the Magpies showed, their cohesion, being their first hit-out for the season and with so many new faces, for one.
"The way that we've approached that - we've got girls coming from Gunnedah, Quirindi, girls playing Central North and stepping up from juniors as well as some of our own returning players - we play a pod based system where people who have played together still play together out on the field and then they're a little bit more cohesive and those pods can form a larger team and that's been very successful for us," Hamilton explained.
Playing her first game in Tamworth colours, Quirindi's Georgia Moore was their top point-scorer for the day crossing twice in both games. She is one of a number of exciting youngsters, Hamilton also making mention of Lucy Plowman, who captained them on Saturday, and Ellee Bowen.
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The women's 7 competition is anticipated to be one of the most competitive this season and Saturday's results have only whet the Magpies appetite to see what they can do in 2020.
"We're so keen and we're keen to see what Blues serve up for us next week," Hamilton said.
It was for a new-look and underdone Albies team a bit of a baptism of fire.
"For our girls, we've got girls that haven't played before, we've got girls that haven't played in this team before so when you've got 12 girls who are all new and you throw them together, and we've had only a couple of trainings, it was a fantastic experience for them," coach Jason Lincoln said.
Only roped into coaching them during the week after original coach Will Waterson had to step down due to work commitments, Lincoln said they will be better for the run with a few players understandably a bit tentative.
"But all off them built their confidence as the game went on and I think it's given them the fire to keep going with it," he said.
