The Under-18 girls will face Warrington Wolves in the final after beating an experienced Deva side 16-9 in their semi, despite the fact that five of their players had not even heard of handball six months ago.
Formed last summer by Donna Hankinson, Sue Whitehead and Nicola Reddin, the Hawks came about when a series of trials for a one-off team for the regional championships were held.
Hankinson explained: “We trained every Wednesday for a couple of months and soon realised that we had a dedicated and talented bunch of athletes who’d really fallen in love with our sport.
“We soon realised that if we didn’t give them a platform on which to continue they would be lost forever – hence the reason why the Hawks were founded.”
Since then their progress has been rapid, and they have around 70 per cent of their players with England Youth caps, while one - James Higgins - was selected for the GB Under-21s.
With regular help from GB captain Ciaran Williams, the club and the players have gone from strength to strength, and Hankinson added: “The finals are just reward for all of the hard work the players have put in over the last few months.
“No matter what the result on 4th June to have achieved so much in such a short time was nothing short of a miracle - we are the newest club with the least experienced players yet all we have done match after match and session after session is improve.”
If anyone is interested in joining the club contact Donna Hankinson via email at donna@turner-bianca.co.uk
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