DAVE Elvy is no stranger to coaching teams to grand finals.

 However, it is doubtful that when he led Bathurst Panthers to Group 10 premier league titles as a captain-coach, he envisaged he would one day be in charge of a team of women chasing their own Group 10 glory.

But that’s where he will be tomorrow as he aims his women’s league tag side at their maiden title when they take on Orange CYMS in the decider at Wade Park in Orange.

The ex-NRL star last coached full-time in 2009 and since then has had the occasional match with the clipboard as a representative mentor. At the persuasion of some of his players, including wife Stacey, he returned to the sidelines on a weekly basis this year.

The Panthers girls went down in a thrilling grand final against St Pat’s last year and Elvy is hoping they can be on the right side of the result tomorrow morning.

“It is a bit different coaching the girls to what it was with the first grade side a few years ago,” he said.

“But it has been very enjoyable. It’s probably not the most serious competition I’ve been involved in. We train once a week and it isn’t as full on, but the girls still put a lot of effort into it and the fact that they’re winning most of the time helps too. 

“They are a really great group of girls, it is only a small group of 14 or 15 whereas some of the other teams have a bigger squad.

“One great aspect has been the improvement some of them have shown, there were a few who could hardly catch a ball at the start of the season and had no experience in touch or league, but they’ve come a long way since then.”

The immediate point of reference for most people when assessing the league tag teams is touch football given that many of the players have a background in the sport, but as Elvy explained there is a lot more planning and method in the 13-a-side code.

“There is a lot more structure than you find in touch footy and though having that background helps with the 

basics like catching, passing, and hitting a hole, I know that we tend to put more emphasis on a game plan and positions. Maybe the other teams are different,” he said.

“I’ve found that a lot of times we might be in a close game and then in the final 10 minutes we run in two or three tries because we’re still sticking to what we’ve planned continued to use the same moves and ideas.

“The girls do listen – sometimes they like a chat as you can imagine, but they are good at taking what you ask them to do and getting it done on the field.

“They all have a role to play, Jess Hotham and Monique Christie-Johnston do most of the playmaking and the other girls have their positions off them.

“CYMS are obviously a very good side and they like to throw the ball around a lot. They tend to make most of their breaks from inside their own 30 and probably hit the gaps better than we do.

“We aren’t too bad defending our line, but maybe we relax a little bit when we’re up their end.”

Elvy will be stressing to his players that they need to enjoy tomorrow’s experience.

“Last week the girls were very relaxed before, the game and not worrying too much about it and I think it showed on the field as we beat St Pat’s,” he said.

“I wasn’t at the CYMS game the week before but everyone said they were really nervous before the game. It is a grand final, too many times players get worked up over it and forget to enjoy the occasion, I’ll be reminding them to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The grand final kicks off at 9.45am.

BATHURST PANTHERS: 2 Claire Woolmington, 3 Stacey Elvy, 4 Jess Hotham, 5 Amy Hotham, 6 Monique Christie-Johnson, 7 Tiama Latu, 8 Yasmin Radburn, 9 Danielle Kirkland, 10 Brooke Wardle, 11 Sarah Walsh, 13 Harriet Messner, 14 Paige Salas, 16 Lauren Hillman, 17 Gabrielle Bugg.