While the Orange United Warriors showed plenty of mettle in what was their maiden grand final appearance - their defence in the opening quarter ultra impressive - ultimately the Mungals could not be denied.

As the full-time siren sounded at Diggings Oval it was quickly followed by screams of delight and warm embraces from the Mungals players.

"It's amazing, it feels so good," Mungals skipper Georgia Woodhouse, who scored a double in the win, said.

"It was really tough at the start, they are really good defenders and some of the tags they were making - God they were diving everywhere. I was like 'This is going to be a tough game.'

"At half-time we were up 12-0 but you never know because it can turn around so fast, it really wasn't until the last quarter that I thought 'Yeah, we've got it now'."

Defence has been a feature of the Mungals' 2021 campaign, but it was a host of brilliant tags - many of them made with full length dives - from the Warriors that was the highlight of the opening half.

It took until the second quarter for CSU to open their account via player of the match Lilly Phillips, crossing between the sticks to leave Sam Hurst with any easy conversion.

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From the resulting kick-off Lily Walsh showed brilliant hands to catch the ball at ankle height before running 35 metres to put the Mungals deep in Warriors' territory.

Moments later Woodhouse scored and another Hurst conversion made it 12-0 at half-time.

In the second half try saving tags continued to come from the Warriors - fullback Rikeisha Ah-See adding to earlier brilliance from Dee Gillard, Tanya Sharp and Kalika Fuller.

But CSU kept coming and tries to Phillips and Bek Giffin helped them to a 24-0 lead with a quarter remaining.

With confidence and momentum on their side, CSU continued to press in the final period and were rewarded with two more tries, halfback Woodhouse making it a double before fullback Brooke Morgan sealed it.

"The girls dug deep, it's a new team, new club and the girls have done really well to get here. We've had some tough losses and good wins but to get this far, it's been an absolute pleasure to get the girls here," Warriors co-coach Jake Kelly said.

"We probably d'ed up 80 percent of that game, I think we only had 20 percent of the ball and I guess you can't win it without the footy.

"But I think it was good enough to get here, first year with the girls.

"They deserved to be here and the scoreboard doesn't reflect what the girls have done this year, they'll come back bigger, better and stronger next year."

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