While the Riverina Bulls put on a strong showing against Monaro after a heavy loss in round one, it wasn't enough to see them pick up the win on Sunday afternoon in Leeton.
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After taking out the inaugural women's tackle competition last season, the inexperienced Bulls side failed to make finals after losing both games.
Coach Dean Whymark took plenty of positives from Sunday's clash with Monaro.
"Really happy with how the girls responded," he said.
"We talked about being resilient at halftime even though we were behind on the scoreboard and we came out and fought in that second half and ended up winning the second half."
The Monaro side took the lead with two quick tries in the first half before the Bulls found their footing and was able to hit back with Tarnayor Hinch getting on the end of a chip kick from Gab Suckling.
The Bulls were able to hold out the Monaro attack despite being under extreme pressure to head into the break trailing 12-4.
Kerryn Wake was sent to the sin bin with 12 minutes remaining, and despite having one less player the Bulls were able to force a repeat set, and Paris Crelley dived over in the corner to reduce the margin to four points with six minutes remaining.
That was as close as the Bulls would get with Sucking sent to the sin bin after giving away a penalty right in front and Monaro converted the penalty goal to come away with a 14-8 victory.
Weymouth praised the effort of his side in defence given the young age of the side.
"Defensively we had to shuffle around a lot of players from last week's game," he said.
"The fact that we have so many young girls, we have about five girls who are only 18 years of age, so to show that effort in defence is a real strong point for their age. We worked in numbers, we let them score two tries in fifty minutes is pretty good effort as a team."
The coach is hopeful if the majority of the side stick together, they will be strong next season.
"We had a chat about keep this young group together and how we all need to stick around and build for next year," he said.
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