Western's future in the women's country championship looks to be a bright one after the young Rams had the shackles removed and produced a stirring 26-0 victory over the GSR Wests Tigers.
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Young guns Alahna Ryan, Molly Hoswell, Heidi Regan and Taneka Todhunter shone in the Rams' girls first win at a country championship level at Bathurst on Saturday.
Hoswell bagged a double in the five-tries-to-none victory, while Mudgee gun Haley Joseph also crossed for a brace and Wellington half Britt Naden scored a try as Western found its grove to put the Greater Southern Region girls to the sword.
Hoswell's and Regan's speed proved deadly in the win while Todhunter and Ryan played well above their weight division through the middle of the field.
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The only low light in the memorable win is an injury blow to Ryan, the new Dubbo CYMS recruit requiring a stretcher to be taken from the field after suffering a nasty blow to the knee.
Still, you couldn't wipe the smile off the face of Rams skipper Meredith Jones, and she said the young girls in her side will take plenty out of the victory for future campaigns.
"We've got a lot of really good young players coming through, Alahna Ryan, Taneka, Heidi Regan ... it's their first year in Rams tackle and they've got so much to offer in terms of their ball work, speed and their footwork is phenomenal," Jones enthused.
"They're absolutely fearless and they've got a lot of potential."
The break-through win follows a tough 30-6 opening round loss to Monaro, where the Western girls battled to move the ball to get their weapons out wide into the contest.
The game plan was to go wide and those fast girls were there every time.
- Rams skipper Meredith Jones.
Jess Skinner's outfit didn't battle the same problems on Saturday.
Forwards Haylee Lepaio and Channy Burgess laid the platform for hooker Lailee Phillips, who was strong, and halves Bec Ford and Naden to direct the play beautifully and help unlock the key to future Western victories.
"The game plan was to go wide and those fast girls were there every time," Jones enthused.
"We realised we had to go back to playing off the cuff rather than too structured, we've got a lot of good quality footballers and once we played for the fun of it, it worked a lot better.
"We worked on relieving the pressure on our forwards and spreading the ball a bit."
- WESTERN RAMS 26 (Molly Hoswell 2, Haley Joseph 2, Britt Naden tries; Bec Ford goal) def GSR WESTS TIGERS 0
Nick McGrath
Editor, Central Western Daily
Editor, Central Western Daily
