Walcha's push to form a women's team took another step forward on the weekend.
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Ahead of Saturday's major semi-final, Pirates took some of their junior girls and their women's 7s side up to Walcha for a development/training day.
The two clubs have struck up an alliance this season, joining forces in the New England women's 7s competition. While the side is predominantly Pirates there are a couple of Walcha girls that have got involved.
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The hope is that their experience and things like the development day will help drive more interest, and Pirates coach Anthony Barbara did note that there were another couple of young Walcha girls that came along.
"We ended up having about 30 girls throughout the day, which was awesome," he said.
They had the opportunity to learn from the likes of Walcha local and former Wallaby Sam Payne, and NSW Country Corellas coach Paddy Bowen.
Barbara said particularly the younger girls took a lot out of the day.
Payne, who played seven tests, also played a bit of sevens and represented Australia at the Sevens Rugby World Cup in 2001.
"Sam was awesome with the girls and they took a lot of knowledge away from him," Barbara said.
"It was nice to have some fresh ideas and voices."
Rams president Roger van den Hoek also did a "pretty hard" fitness session with the girls and they watched the Commonwealth Games gold medal match from 2018.
Having the bye, the day was also a chance for the women's 7s side to fine tune and freshen up for their match-up with Glen Innes.
