Tamworth Taipans under 17s girls star en route to finals at Junior State Championships

Many of the players took part in what was their last tournament as a junior at the NSW Junior State Championships in Coffs Harbour over the weekend.

While all of the Taipans sides picked up at least one win, the under 17s girls had the best run of the lot and, out of 10 Tamworth teams in attendance, were the only local side to qualify for finals.

This, Tamworth Junior Oztag convenor Katrina Davis said, was not surprising.

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"To get to finals was a nice way to finish off their junior career," Davis said.

"Geoff Sharpe has coached that side for probably four years, and he's really disciplined them and provided structure and excellent game plans and intensity.

"They've worked really well under his guidance."

The girls went undefeated on day one and qualified for the quarter finals, where they lost to the Central Coast.

"The 17 girls had some fantastic results," Davis said.

"They had some big wins, and then had to face the powerhouse of Central Coast in the quarterfinal and unfortunately went down."

The rest of the Tamworth teams performed well, Davis said, but this year the path to finals was harder as only the top two teams from each group qualified, instead of the top four as has been the case in past championships.

The under 11s boys were particularly unlucky to miss out, having finished in third place in their pool.

"Across the board, every team had at least one win in their pool rounds," Davis said.

"Competing against the size of the metro teams is really difficult, so considering the girls and boys had several wins on the weekend, that's just a huge bonus for our smaller association."

In addition to the under 17s girls' and under 11s boys' strong results, there were a number of individual performers who stood out over the weekend, who Davis hopes will be rewarded with call-ups to the Country Knights.

"Hopefully we get a few players selected for that ... we usually go quite well representing Country," she said.

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