After tasting New England premiership success with them two years ago, Pirates captain Rosie Ferguson is hoping this year is the year they can finally break through for a Central North women's title.
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They are well on their way to, after dropping just one game on their way to back-to-back Central North minor premierships and their third in-a-row (they also finished top in the New England competition in 2020).
Ferguson has been one of the key figures in that, and was on Saturday among their tryscorers as they set sail for the finals with a 48-nil final round win over Scone.
Pirates came out firing, Sophie Barr scoring in the opening minute and Phoebe McLoughlin adding a second a couple of minutes later to set up a 12-nil lead at the first break.
McLoughlin went on to finish with three tries and Barr a double.
They were at times guilty of pushing the pass, which led to dropped balls and missed opportunities but they'll look to iron out those little execution things over the next couple of weeks.
Everything else in their game, like their scrums and lineouts, and defence, is, Ferguson said, "looking so good". They haven't had their line crossed in their last two games.
After last year setting themselves up nicely only for the finals not to go ahead, she is really looking forward to actually getting to play some finals again and hopefully taking that next step. They finished runners-up to Gunnedah in 2019 after being upset by them in the preliminary final the previous year.
"It'll be good to see where the girls go in the finals, I'm very excited," Ferguson said.
Recalling how when she first started with the club they'd "scrap together a few high school girls to play in the women's" and "it was very unorganized", to now having one of the strongest female programs in the region and so much "amazing" talent coming through, she said you can only pay "respect" and "gratitude" to the "all the people who've put into this program".
Where they are now is reward for all of their effort.
And the players, who've turned up to training and "put in on the field and put into the team".
Narrabri await them in the major semi-final in Gunnedah in two weeks.
The only side to beat them, Pirates go in having won their last two encounters.
But the Blue Boars will be tough, Ferguson noting that they have too have a great junior program and a lot of young talent coming through.
"They've really built up and they'll be really tough when it comes to finals because they'll just want to just as much as us," she said.
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