Goulburn Bulldogs women show positive signs on return

The new-look Bulldogs side took to the Goulburn Workers Arena from 10am on Saturday as the first of five teams to play a trial match against the Mittagong Lions.

The scores were largely unimportant on the day, as both sides looked simply to give their players time on the field to become accustomed once again to the rigours of rugby league.

However, it was hard not to notice how the Bulldogs women dominated their first hit-out in almost three years.

"I'm super-proud of them, they did really well," women's tackle coach, Wayne Blackwell, said.

"They did all the things we wanted to do in a trial match, they tried everything. They might have made a few mistakes, but that's the name of the game. The more mistakes we make here, the more we can take back to training and learn from."

With the start of the season less than a month away, Blackwell believes his team is well-prepared to be among the top contenders for the premiership.

"I think we'll be very competitive," Blackwell said.

"If we're not in the semis, we're doing something wrong at training, and I'll take the blame for that because the girls have got the talent."

The women's tackle clash was followed by the League Tag match between the Bulldogs and the Lions at 11.10am.

Though Goulburn's women had less success in this game, particularly early, they fought back in the latter half and finished with a narrow loss.

Coach Vaughan Winnel knew his side would likely be the rustier of the two on the field, and said the main focus of the day was to test the players' match fitness.

"Some of the girls haven't played for over a year and a half, so I was more focused on getting them some match fitness," Winnel said.

"I was pretty happy overall with how they went."

Mittagong capitalised on some errors from Goulburn to take an early lead. As the match wore on, and the weather got warmer, Winnel told his players to keep the pressure on the Lions.

"I told them to keep it tight, because it's getting hotter, and to run in pairs," he said.

"It seemed to pay off with a couple of tries late. Our best third was definitely our last third, which was good.

"[Mittagong has] played a trial already, so they were more ready to go than we were. You could see that, they came out a bit better, a bit more used to the game, whereas our girls came good at the end of the game once they got the hang of it again."

The women's match were followed by the Under 19s and senior men's clashes. A further report on the men's games will be published.

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