In the women’s rugby league match at Beechwood, Mel Norup scored in the first half before Ash Moorehead crossed for the Magpies to give her side a chance.

But it was the two points from Pender’s conversion of Norup’s try that got her side home.

Norup beat a handful of defenders on the way to the tryline and another three while attempting to improve the position.

As it turned out, the effort even after crossing the stripe handed her side the hard-fought victory.

Hastings League chief executive Geoff Connor said there was plenty to like about a match which had some attacking spark along with strong defence.

“The girls are going really good,” he said.

“We’ve got two tiers of players where half played in last year’s nines comp so they’re a bit more experienced and their skill levels are up.

“We’ve also got other players in their first year.”

Connor said having the women’s fixture on the same day as the men’s was their long-term plan for the competition.

“(These fixtures) are important because of two reasons – the first is exposure,” he said.

“It’s a lot easier when they play at the boys ground because the infrastructure is there and you don’t have to set up twice.

“The girls can tag onto the day and it’s good for the clubs to have more people through the gates and the day goes a little longer.”

Connor said they were trying to build the women’s rugby league competition for next season with another nines competition scheduled for October and November.

“The push is for more sides to play in the nines and hopefully that will move onto next year’s women’s rugby league competition,” he said.

“It’s more about next year at the moment.”

The close nature of the match was what had become the norm in most fixtures this season and Connor was confident that would continue as the girls improved.

“There are some players that are behind the eight-ball but they’re improving all the time,” he said.

“Those new players are getting better every week and as you can see they’re close games.

“Occasionally we’ll get one (team) that runs away a bit, but normally they’re pretty close.

“They don’t drop much ball, the defence is probably the biggest thing they need to work on.

“But other than that – a lot of them play oztag – so the attacking side of things aren’t too bad, just the defence is a bit brittle.”

Nicole Pender, Whitney Smith and Mel Norup were three of the stars for Beechwood.