A dominant season capped with a supremely brilliant outing against the best in the west.
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Bathurst St Pat’s undefeated, premiership-winning Group 10 campaign had the icing nicely slathered on the cake on Sunday after the blue and whites ran rampant in a 60-0 thumping of Group 11 champs Parkes.
The Bathurst club ran in 11 tries – roughly one every four-and-a-half minutes – to put a massive exclamation mark on 2018, a season St Pat’s also won back-to-back Group 10 crowns in after a 16-6 title triumph over Hawks.
Representative gun Meredith Jones bagged a first half hat-trick, while young fullback Erin Naden scored a brace in the first stanza and, too, had a treble after scoring her third try three minutes into the second half.
At that point it was 28-0 after 28 minutes, there was no coming back for a Spacecats side sans Group 11 player of the year Sally Dwyer, Daisy Burns, Ash and Cass Ward and speedster India Draper.
Given those absences, the score then blew out in the second half and despite the disappointment in the crowd you could’t wipe the smile off the face of young-gun Naden, who took out player of the match honours in her first season in blue and white.
“It’s been heaps good … but I wouldn’t have been able to do it all without the girls there to put me through the holes,” the former Orange Hawks star said.
“I’ve really enjoyed it.”
The multi-code gun – Naden excels at AFL, netball and touch footy, too – says the experience of the St Pat’s side has helped her immensely in 2018.
“It’s a different bunch of girls, but they all get around me and being the young one in the team it’s a bit different playing with the older girls,” she said.
“But they’ve got a lot of experience and they know what the game is all about.
“I’m keen for next year.”
Parkes’ premiership-winner Paige Hay admitted it was disappointing the Spacecats were minus so many of their best players.
But she couldn’t take anything away from the terrific St Pat’s girls.
“We had a few ring-ins on the field and we were missing a few … it’s definitely not the result we were after but we didn’t have the same team we’d had all season,” Hay said.
Dwyer was away with representative commitments while the Wards and Daisy Burns were attending a rugby union camp.
“It was tricky, particularly on a day like today. We were all out of position, it’s a bit disappointing but I give it to Pat’s, they’re such a good side,” Hay added.
- BATHURST ST PAT’S 60 (Meredith Jones 3, Erin Naden 3, Bronte Emanuel, Riane Barton, Sarah Watterson, Amber Ohlsen, Elise Woods tries; Mish Somers 8 goals) def PARKES SPACECATS 0