Norths will celebrate another milestone for the club when its inaugural women’s statewide competition team plays its first trial match at Bishop Park tomorrow night.
The Devils will take on Wynnum Manly in a bumper day of five trial matches including the return of the Hostplus Cup premiers under new coach Dave Elliott.
The day will open with matches for the Under 16, Under 18 and girls’ Under 19 teams before the BMD Premiership team takes the field for the first time.
The Devils will be without some of the stellar signings that have helpted to ignite interest in the team including representative players Ali Brigginshaw, Shenae Ciesiolka and Jada Ferguson.
But the likes of NRLW frontliners Annette Brander and Hayley Maddick will be part of the Devils team tomorrow night.
“There’s just a lot of excitement among the players to get out there and play together,” Devils BMD Premiership coach Zac Wallwork said.
“We’ve been training since November so it’s time now to start testing ourselves in game situations.”
Tomorrow night’s match will be played in 35-minute halves.
The Devils will play three trial matches before their historic season-opener against Burleigh at Bishop Park on March 11.
The men’s Hostplus Cup team will have its first hitout against Wynnum, relying on youth and some pre-season triallists to feature tomorrow night.
Elliott will keep about 16 of his frontline players out of the match ahead of trials on the following two weekends.
“It’s exciting for us to see some of these younger players tomorrow night and they deserve their chance,” Elliott said.
“We’ve been training for three months and there’s only so much you can do with training and opposed sessions before you need to play.”
The Devils will play 20-minute quarters, swapping combinations at each break against a Wynnum team that opened its pre-season with a match against the Broncos last Saturday.
