Coach Joey de Dassel is excited to see what the Hunter Wildfires can achieve this season after a "gutsy" 28-19 win over Eastern Suburbs in round four of Jack Scott Cup at Woollarah Oval on Saturday.
The Wildfires showed plenty of grit as they endured a testing 10-minute period in the second half reduced to 14 players after Greta Smith was sent to the sin bin.
Hunter led 21-7 before the centre was issued a yellow card and Easts scored twice while she was off to trail 21-19 with around five minutes remaining.
But Wildfires fullback Danielle Buttsworth produced a try at the death, her second for the match, to seal the victory.
"We've still got a lot to work on and are still not clicking 100 per cent," de Dassel said.
"We still turned over the ball. Easts are a very good side. They've got a number of very experienced players so they were very quick to get on our ball when we had it.
"But just resilience and commitment in defence. They had a lot of ball on our try line and we defended a lot of the game and it was really gutsy to hold them out and to finish with a try after they got a massive swing of momentum in the second half to come back to 21-19.
"To ride that out and come out on top of them with a try was very pleasing."
Emily Freeman and Shana Povey-Hyatt also scored tries in the Wildfires' win, which was their third from four outings.
They only have Gordon to play before the Sydney women's premier rugby union competition reaches its midpoint.
"We're certainly going well and we're happy with where we are," de Dassel said.
"If you had have said that to me a month before we started that we'd be three from four, I would've taken that every day of the week.
"So we're happy with where we are and also excited about where we think we can get to as well."
The Wildfires, who have only lost to Sydney Uni, now have two weekends off before facing Gordon.
