Bathurst's Lachlan Howard, Emma White and Tyler Willott selected for Australian Country hockey teams

Lachlan Howard, Emma White and Tyler Willott were all standouts for New South Wales in their recent Hockey Australia Men's and Women's Country Championship campaigns at Shepparton and their efforts didn't go unnoticed by national selectors.

White and Willott were named on the Australian opens women's and men's country team respectively while Howard was selected in the national under 21s country side.

Victory at the tournament would have added to the occasion for the three Bathurst players but neither the men's or women's sides could return home with the gold medal from the Victoria tournament.

White's NSW women's team had to settle for the silver medal in heartbreaking circumstances after they went down 4-3 in a shoot out to rivals Queensland.

NSW had fought back from a 2-0 deficit, scoring three penalty corners to hold a 3-2 advantage in the fourth quarter, before Queensland found a reply with just two minutes remaining.

It was a similarly cruel outcome for Howard and Willott's NSW men's team, who went through the entire group stage with an unbeaten record only to lose back-to-back finals games against Western Australia and Queensland.

Howard suffered a groin injury in the first game of the championships and had limited match time from that point on - only to then sustain a broken finger in NSW's semi-final.

Still, his efforts on the field at the tournament, along with his past performances, played a big part in landing him a spot on the Australian team.

"I only played three games. I had a game off, played a quarter after that and worked my way back from there. I should hopefully be alright come finals time at home," he said.

"Going through undefeated just to lose in semis really hurt. The boys were down about it but we tried to turn things around in the bronze medal match, but I think we'd picked up a few injuries by that point.

"We stuck it through but we didn't come away with what we wanted."

It's Howard second selection to a national country side after he was named in 2019's under 16s squad, but that side wasn't able to tour due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Howard will get his opportunity early next year when the 21s team travels to Malaysia.

Willott makes his second appearance in the open men's Australian Country team after enjoying his debut in the squad last year.

While he was happy to gain another country cap Willott said it was a shame not to add a gold medal to that selection.

"It always makes you nervous when they're reading out the teams but it was nice to get in there again, and there were quite a few blokes I know who made the team as well, so that makes things easier," he said.

"We had a pretty similar group in the NSW team compared to last year, and we went through the group unbeaten and beat most teams pretty comfortably, but we unfortunately got knocked off in the semi to WA.

"It was a bit disappointing but it was good to know that we've got a team capable of winning it all, since we beat everyone there at least once.

"We were battling injuries. Lachie did his groin early on and was playing through a bit of pain while another had stress fractures in his foot, but these are the things that happen sometimes."

The men's Australian Country side are set to embark on a New Zealand tour next year.

Reading this on mobile web? Download our news app. It's faster, easier to read and we'll send you alerts for breaking news as it happens. Download in the Apple Store or Google Play.