Boars in the race for best and fairest

The lightweight Wade had an awesome game for the Boars on a day that started with a quick dash from his place of work.

Joe is a cotton ginner and works at the Kooramba gin about 15km north of Boomi.

On Sunday he finished a 12-hour shift around 7am, picked up his partner, Tileah McGrady, and then drove the 210km to Narrabri.

It was roughly a two and a quarter hour trip for the pair, who live in Boomi, and after watching Tileah win her Ladies League Tag clash 44-nil against the Narrabri Blues Joe had a "bit of a camp", Tileah confirmed.

"Joe does it week in, week out," she said of her partner's devotion.

"He's a cotton ginner and the season has started. He's on night shift and pretty much headed home straight after the game on Sunday to start his shift."

It was a good day for the Boars too. All three sides (first and second grade and LLT) won and all three now sit on top of their respective competitions after unbeaten starts to the new season.

For Joe it was a great day capped off by the three points in the prestigious Group 4 B&F Award.

"He was awesome," said club president Todd Mitchell.

"He played the full 80 minutes, all in the back row on the left edge. You look at him and he's only slight in build but he's very, very strong. He's a good runner, runs hard and hits the holes well and gee he's good in defence, hits hard makes an impact. His timing is impeccable."

Mitchell said Wade reminds him of former North Tamworth hit-man Wayne Hoad.

Those of us old enough to remember playing against the small but wonderfully gifted defensive star with the Bears in the mid '80s remember a man who could rattle anyone's cage.

Simply put if you ran at Wayne Hoad he would bury you in and under the Jack Woolaston ground turf.

On Sunday Wade whacked away as good as anyone in defence and played a big part in the victory.

McGrady, his partner for a number of years, is also a talented tagger and part of a winning side.

She's also the club secretary!

"They are a great couple," Mitchell said.

McGrady became the club secretary midway through last season and loves her job as well as playing in the LLT.

"The girls are great, we're going really well," she said.

"We had a very hard pre-season, everyone trained really hard and everyone put in the hard yards."

Janice Raveneau, sister of the late club legend Poey Raveneau and Wayne Craigie are in charge of the Boars LLT side that is top of the G4 competition.