In only their third tournament, the Kempsey Cannonballs Indigenous rugby sevens side reached the plate final at the prestigious National Indigenous Ella 7s tournament in Coffs Harbour on Saturday.
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The side suffered defeat in the second-tier final but the Kempsey players had already done themselves and the town proud.
On their way to the plate final, the Indigenous side won all of their pool games in convincing fashion.
The Cannonballs scored 121 points and conceded only 10 in their three victories which saw them advance to the quarterfinals of the Cup.
Kempsey were matched up with the highly regarded La Perouse side, which is coached by former Wallaby Lloyd Walker, and were outclassed by a more experienced team.
The loss dropped the Cannonballs into the Plate draw and they matched up with Casino in the semi-final and they earned a comfortable 29-14 victory to advance to the final.
In their sixth match of the day, the Cannonballs had reached their breaking point and weren't able to produce their best performance in a one-sided loss.
However, Kempsey had already gone above and beyond the expectations they set for themselves when they established the side in January.
Stand-in coach James Lancaster credited Jared Fuller, who was behind the idea of creating the Indigenous rugby sevens side, with the team's success.
"Jared has done a wonderful job putting a team together and coaching them," Lancaster said.
"Some of the players had a predominately rugby league background and Jared has coached them to give them a great understanding of the game and they have all picked it up very quickly."
Lancaster was overwhelmed by the side's accomplishments at the Ella 7s.
"To reach the plate final is an awesome achievement," Lancaster said.
"The side did really well, especially when considering it's the first time an all Kempsey side has competed at the tournament.
"There were some teams there from Sydney and they had obviously played together for a number of years and were very experienced."
Lancaster had praise for all of the players but was proud to see two players lead by example while others also shined on the field.
"The team was well led by Mal Webster and Jeremy Taylor," Lancaster said.
"Owen Blair is such a fantastic footballer, he has already been identified and plays a lot of representative footy and he's so brilliant to watch.
"Corey Gale was arguably the fittest player in our side and his work rate all day was unbelievable."
Lancaster is hopeful the Kempsey Indigenous Cannonballs side will compete at rugby sevens carnivals on an annual basis.
"It was an enjoyable day and the Indigenous side is a great concept and it's good to see so many quality players from the region putting on a spectacle at these tournaments," he said.
"Kempsey has such a large Indigenous population and I think it would be great to see this side competing every year.
"A lot of the organisers and officials were very happy to see a Kempsey side competing and they gave us plenty of positive feedback."
The Cannonballs indigenous side doesn't have any plans to compete at anymore rugby sevens tournaments this year but Fuller and the players have expressed they will compete in 2020.
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