By Tallon Smith

The Panorama Platypi put on a second half clinic against Orange Vipers to take out their third straight Western Women’s Rugby League title 38-16 at Jack Arrow Sporting Complex on Saturday November 25.

After a fast start, the Platypi struggled to contain a resurgent Orange, who surged to a 12-10 half time lead, before the Bathurst-based side turned it all around in the second half, scoring five tries to comfortably take out the title.

Panorama Coach Kevin Grimshaw said that his team’s performance peaked just after half time, 

“I think in the first half we were just thinking we were gonna win, instead of going out and winning,” he said.

“[But in] the second half they just said ‘okay, we’re gonna win this’, and off they went.”

Regarding the first half performance, and the turning point at half time, Grimshaw said that an impassioned half-time address drew a great response from the squad, who then clicked into gear in the second stanza.

“First half, we started off well, we were 10-nil up, then the wheels started to fall off a bit,” he said.

“We just weren’t controlling the ball, we were trying to take the easy way out of the game, bringing the ball off our tryline trying to pass the ball three or four times instead of someone putting their hand up and going forward and charging at them.

“So we got back to [a] 12-10 half time scoreline, half time came along, and I haven’t done this before with them in the three years, but I ripped them a bit, got into them, and then told them what our problem was.

“There was a fair bit of communication between them saying, ‘yep, we do this, we do that’, and I said to them you’re all talking about it in here, I’ll leave you with it.

“I left them with it, and they came out and they went bang bang, and played really well in the second half.”

Grimshaw also spoke of two notable performers within the game, including a current NRLW star.

“We had a fullback there Tiana Anderson, who scored three tries, just give her a bit of room and get a bit of footy to her, and she can do that,” he said.

“Cheynoah Amone, an NRLW player, again, first half she was just in second gear, thinking this is easy, so [she] came out in the the second half, and she said ‘give me the ball,’ and off I go, and she went really well in the second half as well.”

We played them second game in the competition, at Orange, and they beat us 32-26.

We were terrible all game, just to give you an indication of what [it] was like, I think they kicked off five times, and we dropped the ball four times from the kickoff.

As for what the victory does for the women’s game in Bathurst and the Central West as a whole, Grimshaw said the victory and the match itself was “huge”.

“It’s our third straight [year] that we’ve won it,” he said.

“[For] the club its very good, for the game, I think the girls and women’s game is in the whole are is getting bigger and bigger.”

“You could tell that on the weekend, it was a bad day, but we had a record crowd there, and the crowds just keep getting bigger.

“People are starting to follow it, they’re starting to realise it’s not a bit of kick and giggle, that they can actually play footy, they’ve got some good skills [and] they can whack pretty hard.”\

There has been much discussion in mastheads in the area, such as the Central Western Daily, throughout the week regarding the integration of the competition into the Peter McDonald Premiership.

However, the premiership coach says, in his opinion, that those in charge need to be wary in how the game transitions to a winter season, given that most of the club’s players come from other sports, rather than League Tag.

“League Tag is completely different to tackle footy,” he said.

“Our Bathurst St Pats League Tag side in Bathurst have been dominant for the last eight years, I think they’ve won about six competitions.

“When I first came into this and started coaching about three or four years ago, I targeted them, I thought they’re playing footy, even though it’s not tackle, we’ll work on that.

“When I first started, I thought all these League Tag girls would come and play in the off-season, but they didn’t.

“I probably got four players out of it that year, then I got three out of it [the next year], and this year I would have had two, [and] I got three from [Bathurst Panthers].”

As for where the players are coming from, Grimshaw said that a variety of other sports were sources of talent.

“[They’re] predominantly coming from rugby union, in my team this is, I don’t know about the rest of the competition, but I think there’s probably around about eight coming from rugby union,” he said.

“Soccer I think there was possibly two, [from Aussie Rules] I had one or two, [and] there were a couple that played netball, but they also played rugby union.

“They’re strong here in Women’s AFL, they got the jump on rugby league by a mile.

“Even in our schools up here, they AFL got the jump on us in the schools.”

In the lower grades, Orange won the Under 12s (12-10 over Panorama), the Goannas club won both the 14s (32-14 over Panorama) and 16s (22-10 over Orange), and new side Lachlan District won the Under 18s (28-24 over Orange).

(Cover Photo: Panorama Platypi Facebook)