0°C | Thursday November 13, 2025 
21 April 2023
By James Mullan
After winning last season’s Minor Premiership with 7 wins and 1 loss, the North Sydney Bears NSW Women’s Premiership side have done it again!
The Bears set the tone from the start, winning their first three games mainly thanks to the scintillating form of Jakiya Whitfeld and Rikeya Horne who combined for 11 tries in these games. In round 5 and 6 the squad was brought back down to earth with two 10 point losses to Canterbury-Bankstown and Mounties.
It didn’t take long to return to form with a convincing 12-32 round 7 win over Illawarra. But perhaps the sweetest victory of the season came the following week with a 50-4 drubbing of Wests, the team that knocked the Bears out of the finals last season. NSW representative and 2022 Player of the Year, Kirra Dibb played an excellent game scoring two tries as well as booting 7 conversions. In the final 3 rounds of the regular season the Minor Premiership was wrapped up with dominant victories over St George, Central Coast and a 70-0 drubbing of South Sydney.
That final game was the squad’s first game at North Sydney Oval with Jessica Sergis keeping Norths’ fans cheering as she crossed for 3 tries while Dibb added 30 points from 2 tries and 11 conversions. With only two losses in the season, the Bears will be confident heading into the finals. However, the ghosts of last year will be preying on the minds of the team who will be determined to go all the way this time.
Meanwhile the North Sydney Bears men’s NSW Cup recently played their first game of the season at Bear Park hosting the South Sydney Rabbitohs on Sunday 16th of April. It was perfect conditions for footy, dry and sunny, as the NSW Cup side dismantled the Bunnies 40-14 thanks to a double from centre Junior Pauga and tries from Paul Momirovski, Sitili Tupouninua, Regan Hughes, Ben Stevanovic and Jesse Marchke who also landed 6/7 conversions. Marchke’s halves combination with new signings Zach Docker-Clay and Ben Stafanovic has proved to be crucial to their success in attack. Docker-Clay has played 8 seasons of NSW Cup, most recently with the Bulldogs, and is currently second in the competition for line engagements. The 23 year old Stevanovic has found his feet with Norths after playing for both the Sea Eagles and Wests last season.
Meanwhile, Marschke is playing in his 3rd season in North Sydney, stepping up as usual by registering 60 points this year to go with 7 line breaks.
The NSW Cup squad started the season with a narrow 6 points loss to reigning premiers Penrith but quickly bounced back to defeat[extra space] Canberra, New Zealand, Wests and the Sydney Roosters.
Interestingly, this is the final year of the feeder arrangement between Norths’ and the Roosters NRL team, meaning the Roosters have reserve grade talent in both squads this season. Now after 6 rounds away from North Sydney Oval the Bears will enjoy a string of home games throughout late April and may including match ups with Newcastle (23 APR), New Zealand (6 MAY) and Canterbury-Bankstown (21 MAY).
Currently the Bears sit just outside the top 4 on the ladder but will be confident in the fact they have already beaten many of the teams just ahead and below them.