Moroney & Colley on opening win

It was an impressive start to the Betfred Women’s Super League 2021 for the Tigresses, a 40-6 victory over the Rovers Ladies and it marked the first wins for both Moroney and Colley since taking charge of the team following Lindsay Anfield stepping down as Head Coach.

With no crowds and the longest pre-season in living memory for the women’s team, it was a sweet reward for the entire team as Kirsty explains.

“It’s been really good, about eight weeks in charge the two of us and already we’ve faced a lot of adversity, but we have started really well by giving the team some real simple things to do in the game, I think they did that on the whole. There were a few errors creeping in but it’s a winning start and I’m enjoying working with Maz [Marie] and the rest of the team,” said Moroney to castlefordtigers.com.

“We spoke about building nicely into games and Featherstone are a real physical team, we have a few things to fix up for sure before we face Wakefield, but week by week we want little improvements and hopefully at the back end of the season we will be involved in the right games by doing the little things well.”

There were a number of key names missing out from the first game of the season, most notably was 2018’s Woman of Steel Georgia Roche, but with debutants stepping up and impressing, Moroney believes it’s a good early sign for the campaign.

“I thought, in particular, Kaitlin [Varley] was outstanding, she was very nervous before the game, as expected for a 16-year-old but she fixed up a lot of things defensively really good. Once she got that first touch out of the way there was no stopping her! Our debutants like Leah Jones, Amie Backhouse, and Tilly Churm all gave a good account of themselves. With injured players to come back too, it’s going to give us a real selection headache going forward!”

It was an ideal opponent for the first fixture of the season according to Marie Colley, and an even more ideal start when Kelsey Gentles crossed over the line three times in quick succession.

“Fantastic start, we knew Fev would throw a lot at us and in the first 10/15 minutes we shellshocked them a little bit, blew them out of the water but then they get back into the grind and our girls had five repeat sets on the bounce in our own 20,” said Colley.

“To stick that out and not concede with scrambling defence is a testament to the girls really, it was fantastic.

“As Kirsty said, we’ve faced a lot of adversity in the past few weeks with Lindsay leaving and losing our S&C Coach, but the girls have taken everything on board and matured massively over the past six weeks alone. They brought that attitude into the gameday, listened to everything we had to tell them and the instructions they have been given.”

WATCH the highlights from the Tigresses' opening win on Tigers TV!

*Picture credit SW Pix - Pictured - Marie Colley