WHEN the young glamours of Forster Tuncurry Rugby Union Club's women's team, the Dolphinettes, staggered off Aub Ferris Field in Nabiac last Saturday, they looked and felt as if it hit by a stray cyclone, a cyclone named Courtney Currie.
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In the opening eight minutes of the Lower Mid North Coast premiership game, the Dolphinettes saw the 18-year-old Wallamba five-eighth skip and dance her way through to the line for the Bulls' first three tries.
Only then did Taliah Williams and Lauren Benson interrupt proceedings with their own tries as the Dolphinettes lost players through injury following a 55-metre retaliatory try by their own little dynamo, Emily Kennedy, before she was stretchered off with a sprained ankle.
By the end of the game, played in four quarters, each of 10 minutes' duration, Courtney had tortured the Dolphinettes with an extraordinary tally of seven of the Bulls' ten tries in their 58-5 triumph.
"Everything happened so fast. The game was so quick, I almost lost count myself," Courtney related this week.
"I scored three tries in a game earlier this season, but never anything like this. My mind is still in a whirl."
As a school girl at Kinross-Wolaroi boarding school in Orange, Courtney engaged in numerous sports, playing rugby and engaging in cross-country running and 110-metre hurdles without, from her own modest account, enjoying significant personal success as a sprinter.
She certainly has the natural speed and nimble footwork to suggest that with training she could become a marvellous athlete. Having a mind to pursue a social science course at the University of Newcastle, she may well find the facilities to blossom as an adult sports woman.
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From this writer's long-time Involvement in rugby union, initially as a player and then sports writer, individual performances of four tries by a player have been witnessed often enough, but never anything remotely comparable to Courtney's seven tries.
Yet, despite their meritorious win, Wallamba's women encountered their own significant problems when they locked horns with the Wauchope Thunder women in the first round of the Kennards Hire premiership, losing 47-0.
Wauchope have returned to the Lower M.N.C. competition this year after time in the Upper M.N.C. premiership with an absolutely brilliant women's team, topping the table and yet to be threatened in any game.
The concern about their scheduled game against the Dolphinettes at Peter Barclay Field in Tuncurry tomorrow is their rivals' injury toll with at least five players out of action, skipper Chloe Coble, vice-captain Chloe Foley, Emily Kennedy, Daniela Crowther and Bianca Farley.
The men's fifth round match-of-the-day features the Forster Tuncurry Dolphins against the Wauchope Thunder with the Dolphins planning to field two newly arrived Tongan front rowers in their home ground fixture.