RLMD: How Sarina’s women’s side recovered from an 0-5 start to the season

The Sarina Crocs women’s team started the season with five straight losses, they’re now making their mark in finals. Find out how they saved their season.

Sarina Crocs women's team before their big win over Carltons. Picture: Supplied

Starting a 10-match season with five losses usually spells bad news. But not always.

The curious case that is Sarina’s women’s side proves this.

Since their 0-5 start, the Crocs have won four of their past six games, including an emphatic 40-point elimination final victory on Sunday.

“We were sort of just scraping in a team every week, and every week it was a different team,” said coach James Tapim of Sarina’s early season woes.

“Players were playing out of position and players had to play new positions.”

This wasn’t helped by Emily Bella, Vanique Malayta, and Kaitlin Daley being tied up with Mackay Cutters BMD premiership commitments early in the season.

Sarina's Emily Bella in action. Picture: Supplied

Bella would also go on to represent the Queensland Rubys at the national championships and the Queensland under-19s in State of Origin, while Malayta represented the First Nations Gems squad, meaning the pair missed further matches.

“Our motto was ‘if we don’t win the battle, we make sure we win the war’,” Tapim said.

“That was our big battle for the year, and our club expectations were to make finals, which we accomplished.”

Now, the Crocs are firing on all fronts and fresh off a 48-8 demolition of Carltons, a result made all the more impressive considering three Sarina players had left for work by the five-minute mark of the second half.

It left them with no interchange for the final 25 minutes.

But the Crocs found a way, and a number of them impressed Tapim.

“A lot of our young girls really stepped up to the plate and took on the roles they were given,” he said.

“Ieesha Williams, she came from AFL, she’s 18, a rookie… a real gem that one, she’ll have a really good future.

“Emily Bella, she was strong.

“Vanique Malayta was just a wrecking ball again for us, running in a 70-metre try just straight through the middle, pretty much trampled over the fullback and scored under the posts.

“Miranda Davidson was also good in the dummy half, she had great vision and got the ball to who she needed to get the ball to.”

Sarina's Miranda Davis in action. Picture: Supplied

It’s also been a milestone season for two of Sarina’s eldest players, with Lisa Tapim and Rebecca Malayta, both in their 40s, scoring their first ever tries.

This Sunday the Crocs will take on the Magpies for a spot in the preliminary final.

“The Magpies have got good strike players across the park, if we can contain them in defence and keep attacking them with the attack that we’ve used for the last couple of weeks,” Tapim said on the key to a Sarina victory.

“We’ve proved we can mix it with the best.”

Regardless of how this season pans out, Tapim believes it’ll be onwards and upwards for the Crocs’ women in seasons to come.

“This year was a building year… the future for Sarina women’s is looking really bright,” he said.

“Hopefully we make it a fairytale for ourselves.”