Mish Somers is delighted to see Group 10 extend its Western stranglehold

A Group 10 representative league tag side was formed for the first time in 2013, posting a 30-0 win over Woodbridge Cup.

The following year saw players from those two competitions meet again, but this time they were playing for a Western championship. Bathurst Panthers star Claire Woolmington scored the only try of the clash to hand Group 10 a 6-0 win.

Since then more league tag sides have contested the Western championship - Group 11 and Castlereagh-Barwon joining in - but Group 10 has maintained its stranglehold on the title.

The closest they have come to defeat was in 2018 when being pushed in an 8-4 triumph over Group 11.

Their latest success was a 44-4 triumph over Group 11 at Lithgow's Tony Luchetti Sportsground on Saturday. Mish Somers, who captained-coached the victors, was delighted.

"Eight in a row now, the girls played awesome, the discipline on the field was really good and it was a really good game," Somers, who plays her club tag for St Pat's, said.

"We defended really hard, I think we put them under a fair bit of pressure which allowed us to have a lot of ball. The girls were smart with it, didn't push the pass and we were able to put together a few sets and put a few points on the board.

"It was really nice to play with this bunch of girls, there's a good mix of youth and experience and the young girls who made their debut today were just fantastic."

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The pace of Orange Hawks winger Jess Pearson did plenty of damage as she scored four tries for Group 10. Pat's duo Meredith Jones and Erin Naden also crossed for tries as though showed their speed and evasion skills.

"Jess had a blinder. Abby Stammers gave her some really nice ball outside, but she had to run 20-50 metres to get to the line. She has got some skill that kid and I think she'll go pretty far," Somers said.

"The Pat's girls all had a good game. I thought Paige [Hay] was really good for us defensively wise and she took some of those really hard runs in the middle of the game and just kept us on the front foot.

"Bronte was also good on the left-hand side where a lot of those points were scored, but it was just a good team effort and that everyone pulled their weight is why we won so well."

Though Group 11 was outclassed, Somers feels that future clashes between the two Groups could be closer once the young talents who are her rivals gain more experience.

"They are very young so I can definitely see potential there. They've got pretty good speed across the board, they just need to work out how to use it," she said.

"They came out hard in that second half too, we probably took our foot off a little bit towards the end, but to score that amount of points in 50 minutes is very good, I am very, very happy."

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