{"id":119462,"date":"2025-09-04T23:53:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T23:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119462\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T23:53:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T23:53:17","slug":"nrl-2025-steelers-sisters-give-st-george-illawarra-dragons-belief-for-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119462\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2025: Steelers sisters give St George Illawarra Dragons belief for future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maria Paseka describes them as her \u201cSteelers sisters\u201d – the seven Dragons team-mates who played alongside her in last year\u2019s grand final winning Tarsha Gale Cup and Harvey Norman NSW Women\u2019s Premiership sides.<\/p>\n

Paseka, who has been named for her fourth NRLW appearance in Saturday\u2019s match against the Cowboys at WIN Stadium, is one of eight teens in the Dragons side to transition from the club’s Illawarra pathways in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n

Halfback Kasey Reh, centre Indie Bostock, Paseka and forwards Ella Koster, Charlotte Basham and Bronte Wilson were members of the undefeated 2024 Tarsha Gale Cup U19s team.<\/p>\n

Another three players – five-eighth Evie McGrath (Wests Tigers), prop Hope Millard (Bulldogs) and lock Sienna Yeo (Knights) – are playing NRLW for other clubs.<\/p>\n


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\n Kasey Reh, Indie Bostock, Maria Paseka, Charlotte Basham, Ella Koster, Bronte Wilson, Sienna Yeo, Hope Millard and Evie McGrath have graduated from the Steelers 2024 Tarsha Gale Cup premiership winning side to the NRLW.
\n \u00a9NSWRL
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Bostock, Wilson, Paseka, prop Trinity Tauaneai and hooker Tori Shipton also played in the 2024 Harvey Norman NSW Premiership grand final winning team.<\/p>\n

With Reh, Bostock, Shipton, Wilson and Paseka joined by Tyra Ekepati and Leisel Hopoate in this year\u2019s NSW U19s team, the club formed the nucleus of the Blues outfit that won June\u2019s Origin match. Another Steeler, Tahlia O\u2019Brien, was 18th player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m honestly so proud of these Steelers girls that grew up playing with me,\u201d Paseka said.<\/p>\n


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They’re my sisters and I\u2019ll back them every single day.<\/p>\n


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\u201cI’ve got their backs. It’s what motivates me as a player and as an individual to play better for them, as well. I’m really proud of where we are at.\u201d<\/p>\n


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\n Tori Shipton, Bronte Wilson, Kasey Reh, Maria Paseka, Indie Bostock and Tahlia O’Brien with NSW U19s and Steelers Tarsha Gale Cup coach Courtney Crawford (centre)
\n \u00a9Illawarra Steelers
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The Dragons are still in with a slim hope of making the NRLW finals after last weekend\u2019s defeat of the Warriors but need to beat the Cowboys and Knights, while relying on the Titans to lose both their matches.<\/p>\n

However, with such a young squad, coach Nathan Cross is prepared to be patient as he can see the potential in coming seasons.<\/p>\n

Shipton, 18, needed an exemption to make her NRLW debut in Round 6 against the Sharks and has played every match since.<\/p>\n

Paseka, who debuted last year against Cronulla, is also on a development contract, along with O\u2019Brien, who made her NRLW debut against the Sharks and has played two matches as an interchange forward.<\/p>\n

A strong finisher with blistering pace, Paseka has scored a try in each of her NRLW appearances this season against the Sharks and Warriors, and the Kiama junior also scored in both of her NSW Under 19s appearances in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n


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Maria Paseka Try<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had full trust in the girls, and we got away with a good result,\u201d she said of the 26-18 defeat of the Warriors at Kogarah last weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to take it week in, week out and focus on the little things skills-wise and whatnot.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a season plagued by injuries and costly suspensions, Cross is confident that the long-term succession of the Dragons NRLW team is in safe hands with their junior ranks.<\/p>\n


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Tori Shipton Try<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said it a number of times, we\u2019re a really young team,\u201d Cross said. \u201cWe\u2019re probably lacking a couple of older, calmer heads that maybe some of the other, more experienced teams have. But that’s okay, I\u2019m happy to wear that.<\/p>\n


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We\u2019re playing the long game here at the Dragons. We\u2019ve got a really great, exciting young squad.<\/p>\n


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“You look at someone like Tori Shipton, she wasn\u2019t even in our squad at the start of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe’s obviously a development player for us, but for this year, she comes in as an injury replacement. We got dispensation to get her exempt again and she\u2019s doing such a great job, with such a huge future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maria Paseka describes them as her \u201cSteelers sisters\u201d – the seven Dragons team-mates who played alongside her in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-119462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}