The Red Devils' oldest sevens player, the side's so-called "mother duck", Nichole Carlyon, has been praised for her toughness and courage after she played the grand final with a broken rib - in what may have been her last match.
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Gunnedah coach John Hickey contacted the Namoi Valley Independent this week to pay tribute to "my niece and oldest player".
In a text message, Hickey said Carlyon played "a lot" of Saturday's 20-5 grand final defeat of Pirates with a broken rib.
"She couldn't get out to celebrate with the rest of the club at Rugby Park due to the pain," he said. In fact, she did attend the post-match celebration on Saturday, but left early.
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"Tough kids these girls," Hickey added. "She didn't let me know [she was injured] during the game. I replaced her because she looked to be running out of gas. [She] only told me about the ribs [rib] when she was on the bench."
It's not the first time Hickey - a multi-sport professional coach who mentored the Bulldog first-graders last season - has spoken about the internal fortitude of his sevens players. In February, he described 52-kilogram speedster Bec Smyth as being "tougher" than most men he had coached.
Before Saturday's grand final, Red Devils captain Sarah Stewart nominated Carlyon - who plays in the centres or in the middle - and Gunnedah forward Abby Nortrup as the side's most-improved players. "Nichole's improved heaps in defence," Stewart, Hickey's daughter, had said.
Carlyon, a 46-year-old nurse, said she broke the rib early in the match, the result of a knee. On Thursday morning she was still in "horrendous" pain, as the break impacted on a muscle. Because of her work, she can't taken painkillers.
She played down talk of her courage. "I knew I'd done it [broke the rib] ... because I felt it, but I never felt it again until the end of the match," she said, referring to adrenaline: a natural painkiller.
A foundation sevens player at the club, Carlyon broke her leg in a match last season. She thinks 2019 may be her last season, enchanted by the idea of going out "a winner".
Stewart was the engine that drove the side's formation, Carlyon said, adding that she helped Stewart with recruitment in the early days of the side.
"Sarah's [Stewart] my cousin, and she'd been saying to me for years, 'We should get a rugby side'. And for years I've been saying, 'No, because I'll die, because I'm too old.'
"And then last year I said to her, 'All right; I agreed to it, because I thought, we'll never get a side. And then we got a side. And then I just started playing, and I've played ever since."
