WITH five consecutive premierships the CSU Mungals have been the undoubted queens of the Mid West League league tag competition, but come this Saturday they will need to be at their best to extend that reign.
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It is because there is a new contender keen to sit on the throne - the Cargo Blue Heelers.
The Heelers won the 2018 and 2019 Woodbridge Cup league tag premierships and when it was decided that competition would not proceed this season due to COVID-19, Cargo made the switch to the Mid West League in search of more glory.
CSU was the only team to defeat Cargo during the regular season, the Mungals prevailing 18-14 in their round four clash.
But in the major semi-final final the Mungals were below their best and Cargo exploited their errors to win 32-14 and be the first side to advance to the grand final.
It was a loss that hurt the Mungals. But they responded by beating the Orange Barbarians 28-0 in the preliminary final and remain in the hunt extend their remarkable record of winning every premiership since the Mid West introduced league tag in 2015.
Lily Walsh, who was part of last season's premiership winning CSU Yellow side, said she and her team-mates are determined to prove they're still number one.
"It was a lot tougher this year having more teams in the comp, especially Cargo given they've played together for so long. They are are very good team, it shows on the field, but we have a very good team too and we have beat them before and I'm sure we can do it again," she said.
"Definitely we want to prove something. We had that extra game last weekend which helped a lot and we showed that we do want to win the competition after having that poor performance at Cargo."
Walsh feels the key to beating Cargo will be to target the edges with their fleet-footed backs, but knows that the Mungals' have talent across all positions.
"I feel like they have a few main names, players they rely on a lot, whereas we can rely on our team as a whole, we all work together. It's not just about a few players, we have a lot of good girls on the bench who can easily be rotated," she said.
"I feel like there is a lot of pressure because we have a lot of third year girls who haven't won a grand final before, they really want to win in their last year with the Mungals."
Kick-off in Saturday's grand final at Carrington Park is at 1.30pm.
