Raiders select Boorowa girls for Lisa Fialoa Cup squad

"They were just born at the right time," Shania's mother Teresa said after the girls attended their first training session as members of the Canberra Raiders U17 Lisa Fialoa Cup rugby league squad.

The squad is made up of 25 players who will represent the Raiders in the Lisa Fialoa Cup Gala Day in Sydney on July 6.

The gala day is an U16/17 representative carnival.

As part of the squad Mackayala (16) and Shania (15) travel to Canberra each Wednesday evening to train at Raiders Belconnen.

In between they are also training with the Boorowa League Tag side and the Queanbeyan Blues.

Before being named in an extended team the girls participated in a trial match in mid May.

From there they returned to Canberra for a further trial before being named in the final squad.

"Mackayla has been playing off and on for a number of years and Shania has been playing since she was five," Ms McKinnon said.

"She played with the Boorowa junior boys until she was 12 and then after a year off with COVID she, and Mackayla, have been playing in the Canberra comp as well.

"They'll train with them over the next six to seven weeks before the Lisa Fialoa Cup against a number of NRL sides."

Training two to three hours each week (with the Raiders) the girls also with Boorowa two days a week for League Tag and with their Queanbeyan league team as well.

"By the time you combine club games with training they're pretty busy. The Raiders understand and appreciate that and work with the clubs to make sure they're not too overcommitted," Ms McKinnon said.

"Shania has always preferred league over league tag, she only played league tag because she had to. She's loved rugby league since she was little and jumped in to her brother's side.

"It's good that the game has caught up to them, they certainly wouldn't have had the opportunities 10 years ago," Ms McKinnon said.