The Harden Hawkettes have been dubbed the queens of the Ladies League Tag due to them being undefeated and the undisputed favourites for this year’s premiership.

After a rest last week thanks to them winning the minor premiership, the Hawkettes are set to face the Boorowa Roverettes in the major semi-final.

There were two matchups between the Hawkettes and the Roverettes this season, one of which was when we saw the closest game all year for the Hawkettes.

Their first matchup of the season saw the Hawkettes take the win in their second closet game of the year with a confident 26-0 victory. The home-ground advantage combined with a Claire Smith hattrick of tries proved too much for the Rovers.

Their second matchup in round 11 saw the Hawkettes take a closer-than-expected 10-0 win in horrendous conditions at Boorowa. This result provides hope that the Roverettes can upset the undisputed favourites.

Averaging a whopping 44 points per game whilst only allowing an average of 0.9 points per game means it’s going to be tough for anyone to knock the Hawkettes off on their way to the trophy.

The Roverettes do have a proven defence as they only allow 15 points per game and only have two games where more than 20 points have been scored against them.

However, the issues for the Roverettes does not come from their defence, but rather their attack, as they have only scored 4 points against the Hawks in the last two years.

Which is a true credit to the Hawkette’s defence as the Rovers average 22 points per game.

Hawkettes coach Jason Pollard describes how he has a heavy focus on his defence by saying, “we do obviously work on our attacking at training but we talk more on our defence. If we don’t let the points in and sides aren’t going to stop us from scoring points, so if we keep our defence intact, we’re pretty hard to beat.”

One of the biggest contests for the Hawkettes comes from within, as they have the top two try scorers and the top three points scorers. Georgia Smith is the competition’s top try scorer with a massive 39 tries, which means she averages a hattrick a game and 10 more tries for her than last year. Claire Smith is also having a good season as she has scored 30 tries and averages 2.3 tries per game.

The other category dominated by the Hawkettes is the top points scores, where it’s no surprise that Claire is third on 120 points and Georgia is second on 156. The winner from last year, Emma James, has outdone herself as she has scored 180 points for the season.

These three girls are the biggest threats to any team, especially the Roverettes, who have 286 team points for the season compared to 456 from just Georgia, Claire and Emma.

The Hawkettes haven’t played since July but Coach Pollard was unfazed as the girls have, “been working hard at training. We’ve had a couple of interclub games and games against the under 16’s. We’re definitely training hard so I don’t think match fitness will hurt us, the girls are all pretty fit and ready to go.”

Coach Pollard is looking forward to this week’s challenge and highlights a couple of Roverettes threats as he said, “they’ve got a couple of really good girls, as well as a couple of girls I coach in the rep side like the Pye Girls who are handy players. Grace Barker is at fullback, but their biggest threat is probably Imogen (Pye) setting up their plays. She’s a good young player. I am really looking forward to playing them because it’s a bit of a local derby and the girls all know each other, but it’ll be a good challenge.”

Traditionally the game would be played at the undefeated minor premiers home ground in Cootamundra, but this weekend’s game will be played on a neutral ground at Bungendore at an earlier time so the girls can support their Cootamundra Bulldogs in their home semi-final against the Harden Hawks.

While the odds are heavily in their favour the Harden Hawkettes, they still have to get the job done against the Boorowa Roverettes in the major semi-final on Saturday at Mick Sherd oval at 10:50am. Common sense has not prevailed. In what could have been a local derby of Harden V Boorowa at Coota, both sides are headed a long way away.

The Worhawks will be taking on Boomanulla at Les Boyd Oval at 12:20pm in a lower half-of-the-table clash.

Ed Dodds