Harding makes Raiders squad after first game of rugby league

The Bowan Park product has made the move down to the nation's capital and has been rewarded with a spot in the final Canberra Raiders' Tarsha Gale Cup squad.

Remarkably she's only recently ventured into the full contact version of the sport, mainly due to her athletics background.

"It is really exciting," she said.

"I never really would have imagined it, coming from where I live.

"I've only been playing for about a season and my very first game of tackle football was at the Raiders trial so I was pretty stoked to see that I kept making it through all the cuts.

"I played league tag for a couple of years and that was mainly because I did athletics and my mum didn't want me to play tackle because she didn't want me to injure myself and not be able to do athletics.

"Once I turned 18, I was like, you know what mum, I want to play, just give me a year and I played my first season for Woodbridge at end of last year and I fell in love with it."

Such is her commitment to making it in the sport she has packed her bags in order to hit the ground running.

"I moved down from where I live to Canberra so I can make it to training and sort of put in that effort so that I could show that I really wanted it," she said.

"I definitely think I'm aiming to achieve a development contract to further progress into the NRLW."

Harding was a star for Canowindra Tigers in the 2023 Woodbridge Cup, being named league tag player of the season.

Her year was characterised by explosive breaks and long-range efforts, skills highly valued in the typically less structured version of the game you find in women's rugby league.

She said she was keen to soak up as much as she could from supportive teammates.

"This group of girls has been really good, they really lift you up and it's really good to have that social aspect of it as well," she said.

"I just fell in love with it. Learning about it and learning the plays and learning the technological side of it as well."