![Tim Hardy's performance for NSW Country at the recent Australian Country Championships have earned him an Australian Country call-up. Picture Leigh Monk Tim Hardy's performance for NSW Country at the recent Australian Country Championships have earned him an Australian Country call-up. Picture Leigh Monk](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ingYyB85ps4jmG9t8mfsHP/66318e6f-efd2-4821-a760-63258ea4e879.jpg/r0_105_2048_1366_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
He's been waiting three years for a second chance to pull on the green and gold for the first time.
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But Tim Hardy initially missed the announcement that he had made the Australian Country men's side.
He was so engrossed watching the Matilda's World Cup quarter final against France - to be fair most of the country was - that he didn't hear his name called out.
"All the boys were sort of huddled around the phone watching the Matilda's play while all the [NSW Country] girls got their medals and I think that's why it was a bit of a shock when my name then got announced in the Australian Country team," he said.
"I was watching and everyone was like 'Tim you got picked, and I was like 'what'?".
He then had to run out onto the field.
"It was pretty funny," he reflected.
It was a major goal for the Tamworth product after making the side for the first time in 2019 only to never actually get to go away with them after their three attempts to tour were all abandoned.
They are this time round slated to head to New Zealand for what will be the Australian Country sides' first tour there since 2019.
The dates for that haven't been confirmed yet but Hardy is "really excited for it".
Hockey New England's Caitlin Low will also head to New Zealand with the women's side while Tamworth's Lucy Frame is off to Borneo with the under 21s women.
Travelling to Sabah and Sarawak, they will play against a variety of club and state teams.
It will be Frame's second tour with the 21s after heading to Indonesia at the start of the year.
![Lucy Frame helped her NSW Country women's side win silver and was also named in the Australian Country side. Lucy Frame helped her NSW Country women's side win silver and was also named in the Australian Country side.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/ingYyB85ps4jmG9t8mfsHP/6e493f22-01c2-4977-af85-9269d30447f0.jpg/r0_0_806_2042_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The four Australian sides - senior men and women and under 21s men and women - were selected from the recent Australian Country Championships in Shepparton where Frame and Low's NSW women's side just missed out on the gold after going down to Queensland in a dramatic final.
With scores locked at 3-all after regular and extra-time, it went to a shoot-out, which Queensland prevailed in 4-3.
Hardy's men's side unfortunately missed out on the medals altogether, losing their bronze medal play-off, also to Queensland, 4-1.
It was "disappointing", he said, especially after they started the tournament off so brilliantly.
"We went through the round games undefeated and had some pretty big wins there and were playing some really really good hockey," he said.
But they just couldn't replicate that form when it mattered.
It was very much a story of missed opportunities.
In their semi-final, Hardy said, Western Australia probably had five circle entries and scored from four of them. They on the other hand "hit the post three times, had two goals disallowed, multiple short corners and just couldn't put them in".
Beaten 4-2, the bronze medal game was then much the same.
They had "all the chances in the world" but couldn't take advantage of them, and Queensland put away their comparatively "very limited" chances.
The first time he has been away with the NSW Country side since 2019, Hardy said it was "really good" to be back in that environment.
He wasn't the only Tamworth talent to feature in the side. Brandan Horner was the top goalscorer for the whole tournament.
Hockey New England's Cody McCann also donned the blue.