KAREN Tighe is back home in Moree after completing her role as assistant coach of the New South Wales Indigenous women’s cricket team, runners-up to Victoria in the women’s grand-final at the National Indigenous Cricket Championships in Mackay recently.

Tighe, selected alongside fellow assistant coach Zoya Thakur and head coach Kerry Marshall, is one of only a handful of First Nation Women Cricket Coaches in New South Wales.

The week-long T20 tournament drew the top Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cricketers from across the nation with current and past National, Big Bash League and Women’s Big Bash League players.

“It is an honour to represent your community and mob at this event, because it showcases the talent, resilience and future role Indigenous Women play in the sport from grass-root communities to the national stage,” Tighe said.

Tighe is employed at Armidale Catholic Schools Office as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education K-12 consultant at St Philomena’s School in Moree.

The NSW Indigenous women’s cricket team with assistant coaches Karen Tighe (second from right at back) and Zoya Thakur, head coach Kerry Marshall, and team mentor Loretta Stanley-Black (Image Supplied).

She has played State level cricket, coached school girls’ rugby union, rugby league, league-tag and netball, and comes from a sporting family well-known in Moree.

Her brothers, Alex and Marshall Barker, have played pivotal roles in the success of Moree rugby union and rugby league team successes over the years, and her husband, Rod Tighe, is a well-known and respected Row cricketer and organiser of the successful NSW Aboriginal Men’s Lawn Bowls Tournament.

The National Indigenous Cricket Championships has identified the likes of D’Arcy Short, Scott Boland, Dan Christian and Ashleigh Gardner, who have all gone on to represent Australia at the highest level.

The NSW Indigenous Women team defeated last year’s champions Western Australia to meet Victoria in the women’s grand-final.

Victoria celebrated a successful campaign, with the women’s team securing their first title when defeating New South Wales by 58 runs to take the national grand-final.

Gunnedah players Marnee Walters, Zoe Fleming and Makenzie Keeler joined players from Sydney, Wollongong, Bathurst, Lithgow, Orange and Stuart Point to represent New South Wales.

Apart from making the finals, highlights for the New South Wales women’s squad include acknowledging and celebrating stalwart Julie Muir from Sydney, who played her last game after 17 years representing her state at a national level.

The championships also saw co-captain Callie Black, from Bathurst, make selection for the National Indigenous Women’s side.

Tighe is a coaching scholarship recipient of Cricket NSW Foundation’s Indigenous Coaches Scholarship Program.

The program reinforces Cricket NSW’s commitment to strengthening coaching pathways and expanding development opportunities across the state.

“I would like to thank Cricket NSW Foundation’s Indigenous Coaches Scholarship Program,” she said.

“It’s a privilege to work with coaches Kerry Marshall and Zoya Thakur, as part of an emerging coaches’ scholarship and to work with teams in an elite environment and network across the different aspects of cricket.

“I have learnt a lot from them and encourage any young girls or women to take any given opportunities, either on the sporting field or in a coaching role that comes their way because you never know where it may lead,” she said.