Historian and rugby league fan Sharon Cross is the author of The Great Group 10 Rugby League Grand Finals, which is currently on sale.

Cross spent three months researching old newspapers from 1934 to 2013 and compiled all the information she found for the book.

She got the idea after completing a similar project for Bathurst’s rugby league centenary and Lithgow’s rugby league centenary.

“I helped Dennis Commerford [Bathurst Panthers president] and Peter Clarke [CRL Western Region] with the 100 years of rugby league in Bathurst.

“I then moved to Lithgow’s centenary and by talking to people in rugby league circles and history circles, this has just followed on from there,” Cross said.

She said she got her information from newspaper clippings from publications such as the Mudgee Guardian.

She said the biggest thrill she found doing it was reading all the different premiers and how they won the premierships.

“Bathurst have won a third of the [Group 10] premierships and Lithgow about 14,” she said.

“It was just a matter of going through all the years and finding those specific matches.

“I went to Orange, Mudgee as well.”

Bathurst Charlestons won the first ever Group 10 title in 1934.

“Charlestons dominated the scene in 1930s, then it was CYMS in the 1950s, Oberon in the 60s, Bathurst Railway in the 70s, then you went into the Mudgee era,” she said.

For the grand finalists on Sunday, it has been six years since Bathurst St Pat’s last won the premiership and Cowra last lifted the Western Challenge trophy in 1995.

The two teams met previously in the 1989 grand final, which was won by St Pat’s 31-14.

Cross said her next project would most likely be the centenary of the first Blue Mountains 

team to play in a rugby league grand final — Katoomba in the 1915 Hartley District Rugby League competition.

She also wants to find the history of Cowra and Mudgee rugby league clubs.

For a copy of the book, contact Sharon Cross on 0448 556 118.