After taking out the inaugural women's tackle competition last season, the inexperienced Bulls side failed to make finals after losing both games.

However coach Dean Whymark was impressed with their performance against Monaro at Leeton No.1 Oval on Sunday.

He rued a slow start, as the Colts jumped out to an early 12-0 lead, but was pleased with the fight shown in the 14-8 loss.

"We were pretty happy with the effort and looking back on it we allowed a couple of early tries at the start of the game," Whymark said.

"We lost Tess Staines and Sophie Gaynor from the game before, so we were down two more injured players, but the resilience and fight in the team to keep them tryless in the scoreless was simply amazing.

"I thought the attitude and the effort from the girls we had left in the squad we probably couldn't have asked for anything more of them.

"We probably had a lapse in defence in the first half when they scored a couple of tries but the rest of the game we played the best football we could under the circumstances."

Tarnayor Hinch and Paris Crelley crossed either side of half-time and Riverina had a late chance to win it before a knock off a scrum deep in Colts territory.

Riverina were able to take out the first title despite not having a women's rugby league competition in the region and while Group Nine attempted to get one off the ground this pre-season there wasn't enough interest.

Whymark thought a lack of experience told after suffering a number of injuries.

"With a couple of girls moving out of the region and the unexpected large injury toll from the squad that was selected it hindered our chances," he said.

"We trialled really good before a lot of our major injuries and that has had a massive effect with five or six girls playing out of position and five or six girls who are rookies with not much rugby league experience

"When you throw that all together it just wasn't our year."

READ MORE