THE CSU Mungals are in prime position to claim the Mid West League's league tag minor premiership after beating the Oberon Tigers 34-16 in Saturday's top-of-the-table clash at Oberon.
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Both teams went into the round five match undefeated, but after a tight opening quarter the Mungals adapted better to the wet conditions to extend their winning streak.
That the Mungals did it without a number of star players - the likes of skipper Issy Hunt, fullback Claudia McLaren, five-eighth Bronte Emanuel plus forward Lily Phillips missing the clash - made the result even better.
"It was a bit of a reshuffled side as we had a fair few people not play ... at the end we only had two on the bench when we usually have 10," Mungals coach Phil Tuilau said.
"Oberon, their ball skills were quite good, they tried to spread it out wide and do some decent plays, but because of the weather, because of the rain, it didn't always come off for them. But they were a good team, they were well coached.
"We focused on keeping it short, keeping it in the middle and using our fast girls to try and run through them.
"In the first quarter our defence was quite bad - we were spread out too far - and Oberon scored by just going straight through the middle.
"So after that first quarter I just told the girls to tighten up in the middle, I'd rather Oberon try to run around us than through us, and by doing that we were able to be quite strong defensively."
Emily Rhynehart impressed as she switched from hooker to five-eighth, Caitlin Treble lined up at halfback and Meredith Jones was shuffled from the second row to fullback.
Jones finished with a hat-trick - two of which came in the opening quarter to give the Mungals a lead they did not surrender. Centre Jenn Kimbel also snagged a treble and Miranda Rodgers played her best game of 2020.
While there is currently some doubt if the competition will proceed following the latest advisory from NSW Health that calls for the cessation of "activities that result in mixing of participants from different regions", at this stage the Mid West League has not been cancelled.
