When hoping to earn selection for a representative team, experience in the sport in question is usually a prerequisite.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Unless, that is, you happen to be Jess Slade.
The Quirindi resident's sporting background is in rugby union, touch football, and Oztag. She also spent the 2023 season playing league tag with the Werris Creek Magpies.
What she has done very little of, however, is play rugby league. But that didn't stop the 39-year-old from earning a place in the Group 4 team which won the Tri Series yesterday. And, to cap it off, Slade was coach Luke Taylor's Player of the Match in the final.
"It was really nice," the Quirindi product said.
"It was a bit of a shock - it was a big shock - because I didn't have as much time on the field as I did in the first game. But I was involved a lot when I was on the field."
Slade was a relatively late starter to rugby. She took up the sport for the first time at 33 after a lifetime of Oztag and touch football.
After spending last season with the Magpies, she signed up with the Scone Brumbies this year when the Quirindi Lions couldn't field a team. But she was convinced by a friend to put in an Expression of Interest for the Tri Series selections, not really expecting it to amount to anything.
"Jess Baker [who was also picked in the team] and I have played a lot of footy together," Slade said.
"It was a bit of a decision to come back in ... I haven't played a lot of league at all. And [Taylor] coached my daughter, Scarlett, at the start of this year for the Greater Northern Tigers."
Despite her familiarity with a handful of the players in the side, there were butterflies in the stomach leading in to the Tri Series.
"But once the whistle goes, once that kick-off is done, I'm fine. There's no nerves," Slade said.
"It's sitting and waiting to go out on the field that's the hardest thing."
Once on the field, Slade felt right at home. Playing at prop, she helped Group 4 blast through Group 19, 30-0, and then used her impressive physicality in the decider against Group 21, who they beat 20-0.
Though her years of experience playing a wide array of sports put her more at ease, Slade said a handful of her teammates were to thank for helping her find her best football.
"We only had three training runs, and everyone was on the same track," she said.
"We all had the same vision, so we gelled really well. I had a lot of direction from the middle, Nikki Berryman's awesome, [Group 4 captain] Amy Barraclough's so good with direction and telling me where I needed to be."
