RUGBY LEAGUE
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WHEN the Bathurst Panthers take on Orange CYMS at Wade Park today it will be the first time this season that pair have done battle in a Group 10 premier league match, but the men in black will still carry with them some bragging rights.
Panthers crushed CYMS 38-6 on the way to winning their annual pre-season knockout and that result will make what is a tough trip a little less intimidating.
It is also an opportune time for the Panthers to meet the defending premiers given how football-starved CYMS have been. They have not played in the past fortnight due to a bye and the forfeited Lithgow Workies match.
Even though Panthers will head into the match on the back of a defeat, last Sunday’s 16-14 result against unbeaten competition leaders Oberon Tigers was still encouraging.
For Panthers manager Danny Dwyer, all those factors give his side a reason to be confident this afternoon.
“We got there with as good form as we’ve seen over the last number of years. There’s plenty of confidence that was hatched from the knockout and we’ve taken that into the season,” he said.
“I think that win was forgotten quickly once the season started, but to get over the defending premiers gave us a lot of confidence. What we’re seeing now in the proper part of the season is what they’ve taken away from that. We haven’t conceded lots of points and we have scored a lot of points too.”
Considering the Panthers could easily have come into the game undefeated – their other loss a narrow one to Blayney in wet conditions – Dwyer said it bodes well for this match and the season ahead.
“Both the losses we’ve had were probably two games we should have won. Against Blayney we scored five tries to four and we were in it right up until the last minute. In the Oberon game we were in it for 70 minutes and it wasn’t like any bad play cost us that game, Oberon just nailed it at the back of that match,” he said.
“Simon Osborne and at this stage Kyran Bubb are out for CYMS, but they’re a clever football side and clinical at what they do. They’re typically not the biggest pack, but they always get the job done and there’s plenty of points in their halves.”
Panthers have won just one of their last four regular season encounters with CYMS.
However, the win towards the end of 2014 is still a memorable one for the Panthers given it played a big role in taking them into the finals at the expense of CYMS.
Today’s match will round out a bumper seven-game day of football at Wade Park, also featuring Orange Hawks and Barbarians. The CYMS-Panthers premier league fixture will kick off at 4.45pm.
BATHURST PANTHERS: 1 Bradyn Cassidy, 2 Mitch Davis, 3 Blake Lawson, 4 Jye Barrow, 5 Jay McClintock, 6 Todd Barrow, 7 Claude Gordon, 8 Brent Seager, 9 Nick Loader, 10 Greg Behan, 11 Leigh Monaghan, 12 Kyle Byrnes, 13 Jake Betts, 14 Jed Betts, 15 Trent Hotham, 16 Jarrod Seager, 17 Ben Gunn.