The Tingha Tigers league tag side might not have had results go their way at the Country Championships but they're taking plenty of positives out of the event.
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The Tigers were chosen to represent Greater Northern at the competition in Coffs Harbour on Sunday.
They went down narrowly in all three matches but learned plenty of lessons from the "different" style of play of the Northern Rivers, Group 2 and Group 3 teams.
"It was like a version of touch football which we had never seen," Tingha coach Ivan Lackay said.
"They get a roll on like touch which would have been penalised in our area, it is like surrendering.
"They are allowed to reach around and grab tags. Heaps more contact.
"To their credit, that's how they play and that is the style they are allowed to play."
Despite the differences in the interpretation of the rules from Group 19 to the coastal areas, Lackay said his side were still strong.
"The scorelines we got against that sort of thing, it was really good," he said.
"We held our own for a while.
"I loved the experience. I am very proud of my team."
Most importantly, they took it as a learning experience.
Lackay said he is planning on implementing some of the techniques in the pre-season for the 2024 Group 19 competition.
"We will take it on the chin and learn, take the positives and not the negatives," he said.
"We learned a few things we put into the last game and they worked, just watching what they do."
Adding to that, the other teams at the event had reportedly been training for seven weeks into the lead up.
The Tingha girls had only resumed for two.
"You could tell how much fitness the girls had lost," Lackay said.
"If we had a bit more training, we would have been better too."
Moving forward, Lackay would like to see more put into league tag at an organisational level, namely around representative fixtures.
He is hopeful the Greater Northern area can build on their experience from the 2023 event and put together a squad of players from Group 19, Group 4 and Group 21 for coming years.