Fletcher Norris' New South Wales State team wins silver at Under 18s Men's Outdoor Championships

Bathurst's Fletcher Norris got to play in such a grand final on Thursday morning in the Hockey Australia Under 18s Men's Outdoor Championships but unfortunately he and his New South Wales State side couldn't quite find that sweetener as they went down 5-4 to Western Australia Gold in the decider at Cairns.

Norris and NSW entered the competition knowing that a grand final rematch with the Western Australian squad was on the cards, since the same teams met two years ago at the national level.

WA found two quick penalty corner goals in Thursday's grand final before NSW scored right on the quarter-time break.

After a scoreless second quarter NSW managed to go into the last term with things all square at 3-all.

However, WA struck twice again from penalty corners either side of a NSW goal to claim a thrilling success.

It was a disappointing but competitive end to a dominant campaign for NSW, who went undefeated through the pool stage before claiming a 4-3 win over Victoria in the semi-finals.

Norris said his side were always fighting to find their way back into the contest after the tough start.

"We got a little bit unlucky there because we were always chasing them, and that made things a lot after. They put two away inside the first five minutes," he said.

"That didn't really help our cause but it ended up being a really good game at 5-4. We left everything out there.

"It was always going to be a bit of a dogfight and just about who wanted it that little bit more on the day."

Norris said the NSW found ways to make progress against the Western Australia defence but constant player deficits proved too big a hurdle to overcome.

"We had an idea from the start how they'd play. They were very man-focused so we wanted to split them up the middle with a couple of long balls straight to the strikers," he said.

"That worked on a couple of occasions but it didn't help that we picked up a couple of cards. I think we had probably a quarter's worth of hockey with 10 players so that didn't help our cause.

"It was a great tournament overall for us. We dominated our pool and the closest game we had there was 3-0, but it's always going to be a bit scrappy when you step up to the final."

Meanwhile, Bathurst's Millie Fulton and Lily Kable took part in the women's under 18s championships which were also held at Cairns.

Fulton and Kable, representing NSW State, came home with fifth placing after winning an intrastate derby clash 3-1 against NSW Blue.

Bathurst's Ellyce Bestwick and Tayla Grabham finished fourth of six teams in their pool at the under 15s girls championships in Newcastle with the NSW Lions, winning one game, drawing another and losing three matches.

Bestwick finished with a team-high four goals from her seven matches.

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