Nine months after she helped Pirates win the New England women's 7s premiership, Jacinta Cooper was back at Scully Park and savouring title glory on the weekend with her Central West side making it back-to-back Thomson Cups.
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The Tamworth local lined up on the wing in what was her first campaign with the Blue Bullettes.
She was in the squad last year and had played a couple of trials but the championships were cancelled amid the pandemic.
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Cooper said missing out last year made the squad "come back even stronger" having been so prepared and keen to defend their title.
After beating Central Coast 27-5 in their semi-final on Saturday, they were then too good for Hunter running out 35-15 victors.
"It's something that we've worked quite hard for. We've had girls from all around the Central West region that have really put in some hard work," Cooper said.
"To come to training, most of us have had to travel two-three hours to get to each training and we happened to just pull it together.
"All our hard work's paid off, which is so exciting for our team and the region."
The Bullettes led 20-5 at half-time with their backline really starting to click into gear midway through the half on the back of some strong work from the forwards.
"We talked about it before, Hunter was a really really strong team with their defence and attack," Cooper said.
"We went over our game last night after we came off the field; we had a bit of a video session and picked sort of what things we could improve today.
"With our defensive line, getting up and in our attack we needed to be strong attacking that line.
"I think especially in the first half we brought that together."
She said it was exciting to have the opportunity to play back in Tamworth and enjoyed plenty of support from family and friends, and former team-mates.
Possibly soon-to-be team-mates with Cooper keen to have a run with Pirates during the upcoming university holidays.
