Waratahs coach Matt Apps praised the way they really dug in as they eked out a 1-all draw with Olympians in their Tamworth women's first grade hockey clash on Sunday.
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It was a "gutsy effort", he said, playing undermanned the whole game.
Both sides scored their goals in the third quarter with scores locked at 0-all at half-time.
Olympians broke the deadlock but Waratahs replied not long after to square the scores up again.
Apps thought all things considered they "played pretty well"; and in his opinion were "the better side on the day".
"I was really impressed with the effort," he said.
"They dug in and played for each other."
They employed a quite defensive structure, and got good reward from that.
Maddie Langenbaker got the vote from the players as their best. Playing as a sweeper, she "cleaned up a lot of ball," Apps said.
Bianca Mulligan also "played a strong game" while Anita Collins was a force in the centre and keeper Michelle Courtney put some good pressure on and made some good saves.
Apps is in his first year coaching with Waratahs after moving to Tamworth late last year through his work with the Rural Fire Services (RFS).
He is though a familiar face in hockey circles, being a high level technical official and umpire with Hockey NSW and also Hockey Australia.
After learning he had come to town he said a mother of one of the Waratahs' players approached him about coaching them.
Having "done everything else" - playing, managing, officiating - he thought he'd give it a go.
He is also playing masters with Kiwis and has thrown himself into umpiring.
"I was looking at playing (of a weekend), but I thought playing and coaching and umpiring was a bit too much," Apps said.
Sunday's draw was Waratahs' second in what has been a bit of an inconsistent season so far with different players in and out of the squad each week.
Apps too did miss the first few rounds as he was involved in the flood clean-up in the Northern Rivers.
The point was for Olympians something at least out of a game coach Steve Littlejohns found "quite frustrating" to watch.
Despite missing about seven of their regular side including their entire forward line, they had a lot of possession and a lot of territory, but they just couldn't convert it.
It wasn't so much that they were missing shots on goal, they weren't getting to that stage.
"We didn't have anywhere near the shots on goal that we should have," Littlejohns said.
"We weren't penetrating like we should have."
"They (Waratahs) played a very defensive game, had 11 behind the ball and we struggled to break through their defence."
In the other games Flames beat South United 2-nil to jump a win clear of them at top of the table, while Services leapfrogged Tudor Wests into third with a 3-1 win.
TABLE: Flames 12, Souths 10, Services 9, Tudors 8, Olympians 7, Waratahs 2.
