Georgia and Clare Smith with their coach and fellow ACT team mates.
What a week it has been for our favourite Twin Town ’Twinnies’ who have remained undefeated to claim the Over 27 Australian OZ Tag Title, defeating the best sides in the world.
Affectionately called the ‘Twinnies’ from their early days at the Harden Hawks under the Hawkettes league tag side, Georgia and Clare Smith played in a phenomenal side in Coff’s Harbour, where they both contributed to the wins with each of our stars getting on the scoring sheet and defending well Georgia said, “First game Friday was against Samoa and we won 28-0. Next game was Great Britain and we won 10-2. Saturday’s first game was Indigenous Australia 12-1. Against New Zealand 14-0. That left us undefeated and in first place in the pool and put us straight through to the final. The other four teams had to play off in the semi final.
“We played our final against New Zealand, who finished in fourth, and we beat them 23-1.
Georgia explained how the scoring differs in OZ Tag to league tag.
“Each try is worth one point and then there is a small bonus box in the middle of the try line and it’s worth two points.
“We had five or six tries in that two point box which helped and that’s where the scores blew out, getting them in that box.
“That put us straight to the grand final against Great Britain and we defeated them 7-4. “It was probably the longest half of football that I have ever played. I can’t remember what the score was at the end of the first half, but the last ten minutes was quite stressful.
We were ahead by quite a bit and it ended up being seven tries to two because all of our tries were one pointers and they went in and scored two tries in the two point box.
“In the last five minutes we were only actually up by one point, 5-4.
Georgia and Clare were ‘subbies’ meaning that when one went off the other came on. This likely confused the opposition and it did.
“Clare and I were sub buddies. You do two, three, five minutes and then you sub. Sometimes every time we scored we subbed. We never actually got to play on the field together.
“A couple of the opposition family members were a bit confused and had trouble telling us apart.
Clare plays in a black long sleeve underneath her singlet and I don’t, but even then they were still confused.
“Normally with our coaches we say that we want to play together, so this is the first time we have been sub buddies and not played together, but that was our choice.
Georgia was never going to play. With her injury toll mounting and resigned to the fact that she may let her side down she came to the game with the mindset that she wouldn’t take the field.
“I rocked up to the training on the Thursday and I still had it in my head that no, I’m not playing, I can still barely walk and can’t push myself through the pain like I did the Saturday at Harden and my coach just looked at me as I had on my trackies, my crocs and my hoodie, but I had all my stuff, and I just sat down. She said “are you going to play or are you calling it here”? I said I can’t and she was like “well are you going to try?” and I just looked at her blank.
“That training didn’t sink it. I was so okay with not playing. I was like I feel fine, I’m not upset about it at all, and I think it just sunk in when I turned up to that training and watching them start to train and I was like “sh*t, I’m missing out on a lot”.
“Our coach Michelle is very good. We had our awards night on the Wednesday and she received a lot of awards and she is pretty much labelled as one of the best coaches you can get in the world.
“She said just do what you can, and I think she wanted to push me to see what I could do. They all did their warm up and training and stuff and I just did my own warmup for half an hour or 40 minutes on my own. I actually got very lucky because one of the girls that we were playing with had recently done her ankle and carries an ankle brace around with her and I tried it and it took away about 80% of my pain.
“I had it strapped and there was still too much pain to run through and if she didn’t give me that brace, there is no way I would have played.
“I don’t need to buy one as she was so generous and let me keep it. I was so happy about it. I would not have played if it wasn’t for that brace.
“Michelle was so good. Before every game we did our team warmup, but she let me go and do my own thing. From getting through the training it was more of a mental battle and seeing how much I could push through. Once I did get it
warm, it was hard playing as I still had a limp about me, but when I was finishing games the pain was gone.
“I think that was because I forced my ankle to move a lot more than it has in the last six weeks. It’s still sore, but I’m out of the boot and walking a lot better and nowhere near as much pain.
“Clare came home with just a bit of a bruised shin, so she pulled through pretty good as well. “Clare scored a double in the first game and I got one in the first game and then we didn’t score again all weekend until Sunday when Clare scored one or two in the final and I scored one in the grand final.
“OZ Tag is very different. We rely a lot on our wingers, they probably racked up a lot of the tries.
“I was talking to the girls after the game and playing injured was such a good experience as it let me learn how to play a different style of footy. I wasn’t the one running all the metres and scoring all the tries, but had to be a part of slowing down the plays, getting the quick play the balls and having that role to set up other people to do the try scoring.
“For me it was a really good experience to learn that other role in the game as well.
“I’m hoping to be back to business as usual for the Hawkettes. The last two weeks playing for Harden I was doing the bare minimum and I only stayed out there because having my voice out on the field makes a difference even though I’m not physically doing anything, but I felt that was important.
Let’s wait with anticipation for the ‘Twinnies’ and their comeback for the Hawkettes next weekend.
