Mikayla Gross was at Macquarie University on Saturday to watch the biggest moment of her boyfriend's promising rugby league career.
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Kobe Bone was about to trial for the North Sydney Bears against their feeder club, the Sydney Roosters, in a bid to make the Bears' 2021 SG Ball squad.
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The Tamworth 18-year-old has relocated to his former home, the Central Coast, to give himself better access to the Bears' three training sessions a week as he chases his NRL dream.
Fellow Tamworthian Gross - also 18 and a 2019 Australian Schoolgirls water polo representative - will soon join her boyfriend of almost two years on the Central Coast.
It will be the start of an amazing phase in her decorated life: she begins a nursing degree at the University of Newcastle next year and will soon resume playing for the Hunter Hurricanes in Sydney's premier league and then the National League.
Gross has emerged from the COVID fog, which kept her out of the pool for months and left her feeling "a bit lost", and is set to resume training after doing her HSC at Tamworth High. But first, she is supporting Bone in his cutthroat quest to become an NRL player.
"It's a pretty big effort," she said of Bone's commitment. "I'm very proud of him."
She added: "But I may have to give Kobe some competition: he can't be the only sportsperson in the house ... We're definitely both pretty competitive."
The couple, who have mutual friends, got together after Gross spotted Bone playing for Oxley High in a rugby league clash against
The Bears' squad will be cut further after the Roosters clash. (Bone, a North Tamworth under-18 premiership winner, survived a previous cut.)
If the lock forward - who played in the 2020 Greater Northern Tigers under-18 side - survives the latest cut, he will line up against the Western Suburbs Magpies. After Christmas, there are trials against Manly and Penrith.
