TARYN Love is recovering from a massive five days which saw her claim a nation gold for touch football and a Group 7 women’s league tag premiership.
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On Saturday, September 20 Taryn claimed gold with the NSW team after they finished undefeated at the National Youth Touch Football Championships on the Sunshine Coast.
The Burril Lake resident had big shoes to fill with state representative touch football players for a mother and father.
But Taryn, 17, took it all in her long stride as she finished the leading try scorer for the tournament with 22 tries, including one in the grand final.
Taryn’s journey to nationals started back with her Ulladulla High School team, where she was then chosen to represent the South Coast.
In June the South Coast team played in a three-day tournament in Nelson Bay where they finished fourth, with 14 girls then selected for the open CHS state team.
“I have played at that tournament since year five and this year was the first year I was picked for state,” Taryn said.
“I was obviously very excited. But also very nervous to play up because it is such a high level.
“But all the girls in the team – it was like we had been friends for ages. We were a really close-knit team, and I think that showed on the field.”
The NSW team had three team training sessions together before heading to the Sunshine Coast for the September 17 to September 20 tournament.
It was an intense four days for Taryn and the NSW team, who played nine 40-minute round games over three days before the semi-finals and final on Saturday, September 20.
“It was intense,” Taryn admitted.
“But we had ice baths between each game which made it less stressful on our legs.”
NSW finished top of their pool and went into the finals undefeated.
In the semis they easily accounted for Brisbane 7-2 to face Queensland in the finals.
“It has been close with Queensland the past and NSW has only just lost to them in the past two years so we were really motivated to win,” Taryn said.
It was a close final with NSW going into the break 2-1 up.
In the second half both teams clocked up another two points each, but NSW were able to defend strongly in the last 10 minutes to prevent Queensland equalising.
“They had the ball in the last 30 seconds so when it was finally over I was very relieved,” Taryn said.
“But we were all so excited, especially since it was a lot of the girls’ last year on the team.”
After the presentations Taryn was straight on a plane back to Sydney, where she had to be at Collegians Sports Complex at 7.30 on the Sunday morning to play the South Coast Group 7 women’s league tag grand final for the Milton Ulladulla Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs were the underdogs going up against the minor premiers, Kiama Knights, but lifted for their final game to take the win 12-8.
But this wasn’t without its touchy moments.
In the last five seconds of the game a Kiama player put a kick through and Taryn and Bulldogs fullback Ebony Murray raced to prevent Kiama from scoring.
In the rush for the ball Taryn was kicked in the head and blacked out for the full-time whistle.
“I couldn’t tell if the cheering was because we won or they scored a goal,” she laughed.
“I even missed out on the team selfie at the end coz I was in the change sheds.
“It was a really good way to end the season though, beating the defending premiers.”
It has been a big couple of months for Taryn, who also claimed two silver medals at the CHS state athletics titles in August for long jump and triple jump.
Now in her sporting off-season Taryn said she will now focus her energy on surflifesaving.
She has been with the Mollymook Surflifesaving Club since she was eight-years-old and hopes to this year represent South Coast and make it to nationals.
“I have won the open flags in the country titles and made the state titles before and I was close to making the Australian finals last year so I hope to make them this year,” she said.