Port City Breakers and Port Sharks eye first-ever junior league tag titles

But on Friday night at Wingham, both clubs can share the spotlight when they aim to win the first-ever girls junior league tag premierships.

The Sharks under-14s will line up against undefeated table-toppers Taree City, while the Breakers under-16s will hope to replicate their senior league tag team’s success from Sunday.

Sharks co-coach Laura Cudmore knows her team is up against it, but she welcomed the underdog tag.

“It went down to the last game of the season to determine who finished first, second and third,” she said.

Throughout the season the northern zone teams played each other, while teams from the southern part of the zone did likewise.

At the end of the competition-proper, both ladders were merged together where the Sharks finished second overall.

They qualified for the grand final with a 28-12 win over Forster last Friday which avenged a first-round finals defeat to the same opposition.

“Taree haven’t lost a game, but we finished on top of the table for the northern region,” Cudmore said.

An emphasis on defence has been the key to the Sharks progression through to the final match of the season.

“We’ve worked really hard on our defence – it’s been our main focus,” Cudmore said.

“We only looked at our attack over the last couple of weeks.”

If the Sharks get home on Friday night, Cudmore expected it to be largely due to key trio Bella Keegan, Mia Fenton and Charlee Law.

“Mia is our hooker who brings a lot of talk to our defence in particular and Bella is our playmaker,” the coach said.

“Charlee is a bit of a freak; she scores pretty much every week and stops at least a try every week.”

Cudmore admitted it had been a surprisingly successful season from what her team had shown in the first training run of the season.

“Most of the girls don’t have a footy background, or oztag or touch – a few of them had soccer backgrounds and none had played before,” she said.

“We’re definitely the underdogs.”

Simone Smith’s Port City under-16s haven’t lost a game all season and they will also face Taree.

The Breakers defeated the Bulls 18-16 to progress to the grand final and Smith expects another close contest.

“They scored first in that game and it was a bit of a surprise to the girls – one of them started crying,” she said.

The key to their successful season was largely due to a strong core playing group.

“I’ve been lucky to have a good core group who had a touch background,” she said.

Co-captains Leilani Grainger and Maia Marino will provide the direction with Marino contributing an x-factor in attack.

Grainger won the senior league tag title with the Breakers last Sunday and the coach expected her to use that experience to her advantage.

Smith said Marino is a perfect foil in attack.

“She’s got a cool, calm and collected style which takes the pressure off Leilani,” Smith said.

“She’ll go out there and do things that are unexpected; when she’s on, she’s on.”