The Mick Schmiedel-coached women's tackle squad was the first to play in the rainy conditions. They lost 12-4 while the Brad McManus-coached Tiger men lost 24-12.

Schmiedel was delighted with his squad of 22 despite an early onslaught from the Novocastrians.

"We started slowly," Schmiedel said.

"They [Newcastle] scored three tries in the first 20 minutes. Got the jump on us. We made a few little errors and they capitalised on them.

"Newcastle has been together for six weeks, training together and all we've had is one session as a squad.

"So I was pretty happy with that.

"We've got a few things to look at when I look at the tape."

He said all of his squad clocked around 30 minutes or more.

"They all got good minutes to show their wares. We play them again in two weeks time in Cessnock," he said of a first round Country Championship clash.

Uralla's Amy Barraclough, the Tigers captain, was a standout in attack and defence, Schmiedel said.

"You expect that from her though," he said.

"The two 17-year-olds, Anastasia Martin and Lucy Plowman also more than held their own. That's good for the future."

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The Tigers men were in a similar boat to the women, having had just the single session to work together.

They also have a small pack of forwards and did well in the wet conditions and were more than competitive in their six try to three loss.

"I was pretty happy with it - real happy," McManus said.

"We only came together last Wednesday. They [Newcastle] led us early but we clawed our way back to 12-all. They scored a couple of tries at the back end of the game but we were in it for a long time.

'I'm very happy with what I've got to work with and we have a couple of weeks to work on it before we play them at Cessnock in the first round of the Country Championships."

He thought Manilla captain-coach Mitch Doring and young Denman star Brady Benkovic were good "but they were all pretty good, pretty well all round. We have plenty to work with."