By PETER ROWE
The battle for third place on the Westpac Women’s Premiership took another turn on Friday evening at Treeby Oval as a dominant Fremantle Roosters defeated North Beach Sea Eagles 22-6.
The Roosters, who looked out of the race only weeks ago, are now firmly back in the driving seat after a solid first half performance that gave nothing to their opponents as they raced to a 18-0 halftime lead.
Winger Teana Jenkins opened the scoring after nine minutes, crossing on the right edge, before fellow winger Georgia Bett added another as the North Beach defence struggled to stay in the game.
Next up was centre Keisha Marshall, as the Roosters played smart to change direction and kick across field – a ploy the Beach defence couldn’t handle. Marshall weaved her way through a broken defence to score and extend the lead.
Then minutes before the halftime siren Kayla Webb grabbed a fourth with the visitors desperately looking for the break to regroup.
Regroup they did for much of the second half, with the Roosters only managing one further try in the 52nd minute before Brianna Young scored a late consolation try three minutes from time for the visitors.
Back in third place, Rooster captain Kateraina Horner said after the game the pieces of the puzzle were slowly coming together.
“We knew from the beginning that North Beach we would start strong, so we had to match therm,” she said.
“It was a great win and we will keep building each week, training and playing ahead of the finals.”
The Roosters were helped by men’s first grade player-coach Delane Edwards.
“His experience on the bench was really helpful,” Horner said. “It’s family club here and it was great to see him helping out.”
