Erin Naden named Group 10's league tag player of the year for a second time

The thing is, Erin Naden is a star.

The St Pat's fullback earned the honour at Friday night's Group 10 awards night, picking up the honour for the second time after winning the prize three years ago.

It's a nice confidence booster for Naden ahead of her team's upcoming preliminary final against Orange CYMS.

The Saints' tag squad are the only team left flying the flag for the city in finals this year after their reserve grade clubmates and the Bathurst Panthers first grade team bowed out of contention on Sunday.

"To be honest I didn't expect it because I missed four or five games this year, so I was very excited to get it. It was a shock," Naden said.

"I'd just done well enough in the games that I'd played to win it.

"I was the first St Pat's player to win it in 2019 so to get this award twice also feels really good."

Naden wasn't the only Saints tag player to come away with an award on the night.

Meredith Jones was the top try scorer for the season, crossing 26 times in 2023, while player-coach Mish Somers claimed the leading points scorer (148) and goal scorer (64) awards.

"That was heaps good to see," Naden said of the other prizes.

"Mez has gotten close a lot of times and has just missed out so it was really good to see her pick up an award this year because she's always been there supporting us."

Pat's stayed alive in the inaugural Western League Tag finals series after comfortably accounting for Forbes Magpies 42-16 in Parkes on Sunday.

A week earlier Pat's went down 16-12 in a shock loss to the Dubbo Macquarie Raidettes.

The blue and whites were back to their ruthless best on the weekend, booking themselves a meeting with Orange CYMS this Sunday in the preliminary final.

"That was a great win because we trained really well and we didn't play well at in the game before, and I thought in this one we were much better as a team," Naden said.

"Across the park there was not one bad player.

"We weren't on at all against Macquarie. At least we had the loss in that game, which is better than it happening in one of these games. We got it out of our system and we were able to prepare ourselves for these ones."

The winner of the Pat's-Orange game will face the victor of the Dubbo CYMS and Dubbo Macquarie clash.