The top placed Harden Hawkettes have been flying in the 2022 Goerge Tooke Shield season, still undefeated in the ladies league tag competition with just three games to go before the finals series starts. 
The Hawkettes face a trip to Binalong this weekend where they will come up against the Brahmans at 1pm on Saturday afternoon.
Jason Pollard, coach of the Hawkettes filled The Times in with the run home before finals.
“The Binalong girls always have a good crack. They always try and their attitude good.”
“We’ll be missing a couple of players on the weekend due to union commitments against Boorowa. Other than that, we should probably have everyone fit and firing, providing Covid doesn’t hit a few of them.
“We should have most of the squad available and hopefully over the next few weeks we can work hard at training and get a few wins under our belt before the semi’s.”
As the men’s and ladies George Tooke Shield fixtures follow each other in finals, the Hawkettes aren’t secured a home final just yet.
“Our girls will definitely go to Bungendore in the first week of the finals because they will probably finish first in the men’s grade,” Polly explained.
“Bungendore went through undefeated one year and we pushed them every step of the way. They had a pretty sacked side with Australian OzTag players. Our girls were very young then but have improved considerably.”
The Hawkettes have an impressive for and against in the 2022 season, scoring 484 points and only conceding just 12.
Harden has a positive points differential of 472, almost 300 more than the next chasing side, but that doesn’t mean much once finals start.
“We can be knocked out in the finals if you don’t bring, you’re A-game. I told that to the girls, we’ve got a tough few weeks of training to get ready. We need to work on our fitness before the semi-finals, we don’t want to be doing too much of it during finals,” Polly continued.
Hawkettes Star Emma James, who has already hit a milestone this season in scoring 1000 points for the club, will play her 100th game against the UC Stars next weekend.
“Three other girls may also play their 100th game on grand final day if we win our major semi and go straight through to the grand final.
“Emma will be the first Hawkette to reach the 100 games and then the rest will follow.
It will be a big achievement for the whole club.
Following this weekend’s clash against Binalong, the Hawkettes will face the UC Stars in round 14 and then will come up against the Gunning Rooettes in round 15, both to be played at McLean Oval.
Tim Warren
