FOR the last three seasons the Bathurst Bulldogs have held bragging rights as the best women's team in the Central West and ahead of their latest Ferguson Cup campaign the signs are looking good.
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The Bulldogs have been crowned the women's victors at the Cowra Twilight Tens competition.
Bulldogs team manager Tiffany Holland said the tournament was a good chance for the squad to get some pre-season match fitness. They will certainly need it if they wish to make it four consecutive Central West Rugby Union premierships.
"It's a really good day and really well organised even with a few teams that pulled out," she said.
"It's a good opportunity for us to kick start our season, which will start in a month. Get a good hit out and be in front of a big crowd."
Holland said the tournament not only saw the Bulldogs produce some impressive rugby, but that their rivals played a good standard as well.
"There was really good leadership from Mandy Scott who managed to score a few tries throughout both games, we had a few strong forwards in Ebony Fenton and Edwina Ulberg. Everyone played really well off each other," she said.
"There was good sportsmanship shown over the comp, a few teams were short and a team fortified, so people pitched in here and there and helped out the other sides.
"It's always good when ladies pitch in and help out the other teams."
Bulldogs captain Fenton said the other positive to come from the tournament was that it allowed both the returning players and new squad members to work on their combinations.
"We have few new girls so it was good to have a hit out with them to see what we can work on going into the season," she said.
"When we played Woy Woy it was a hard, physical game.
"We're used to playing Cowra and West Wyalong, so to get a team from further away was great, it lets us see how we scale in terms of the Sydney and city teams.
"A big thanks to Tuma and Mike for training us and bringing us up here and a huge thanks to Ali Stanford who's organised everything for us, we call her the chief for a reason, she rounds us up and gets us up and going."
The 'Filly of the Tournament' award went to the Bulldogs scrumhalf Mandy Scott.
Tournament organiser, Ben Casey, said the 2020 tournament was a fantastic day and points to a strong future.
"We had a good broad representation of teams of both clubs and invitational sides from a diverse geographical area, which is what we want," he said.
"Last November we said with the economic times, drought and bushfire the best we can hope for was 12 men's sides and four women's sides, possibly even less than that.
"Invitational teams that have been coming for a long time didn't come this year but we expected that, everywhere is doing it tough. We ended up with 12 men's and three women's which is a good outcome.
"Next year is 30 years, it's going to be a big one so we are going to try and get a team back from every club that's won the Cowra Tens.
"We're the longest running tens tournament in the southern hemisphere, certainly the longest running tens tournament in Australia so next year is going to be big."
