TWO Northern Rivers players have made their NRLW debuts for the Gold Coast Titans in a breakout year for female rugby league.<\/p>\n
Phoenix-Raine Hippi and Lily Patston both featured on the wing for the Titans this season.<\/p>\n
Hippi, a teenage sensation from Ballina who represented Queensland at under-19 level, stepped in when Patston suffered a season-ending leg injury.<\/p>\n
In her debut game, Hippi made five tackle breaks, 69 run metres and scored a try.<\/p>\n
NSW Rugby League zone manager Wayde Kelly said there were a handful of local players who could be picked up by NRLW clubs in the coming years.<\/p>\n
The Northern Rivers started with a modified league tag competition in 2018 and now has tackle competitions for junior and senior females.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took a while to establish a pathway and regular competition for young girls to be able to play tackle,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew we had enough talent here; it was just a matter of getting them consistent footy week in and week out to help them get to the next level.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhoenix is still very young; she\u2019s a natural talent who got a special exemption to play against women when she was in the girls competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe injured her ankle playing for Queensland and probably would have debuted a month earlier this season.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Tweed Seagulls BMD team, which plays in Queensland, is filled with Northern Rivers talent.<\/p>\n
Lillie Mumford, Starbella Tonkin and Elsie Wilkinson were selected as emerging NSW Blues players from the state-wide Lisa Fiola Cup under-17 competition.<\/p>\n
Ballina teenager Savannah Roberts-Hickling represented the Australian Schoolgirls rugby union team last year and is part of the Titans NRLW squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe future looks bright and I\u2019m sure a few more players will get an opportunity in the coming years,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt comes down to timing and putting themselves in the position where they can be called on.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur local coaches have helped by embracing the game along with the junior clubs who gave the girls the opportunity to play in a regular competition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TWO Northern Rivers players have made their NRLW debuts for the Gold Coast Titans in a breakout year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-95333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}