IT wasn’t just the Bathurst Panthers Group 10 premier league side who enjoyed success over cross-city rivals St Pat’s on the weekend but their first division side also achieved the same feat with a late try.
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With less than two minutes on the clock Panthers winger Tom Olsen got on the end of a chip kick to the left corner and gave his team a memorable 22-19 win in the qualifying final.
Like their premier league counterparts, the Panthers first division team progress to a major semi-final meeting with Orange CYMS this weekend.
Panthers player-coach Mick Wicks was thrilled with his team’s effort given they haven’t had much match time of late.
“It was a messy game all up but I think the boys showed character. We’d only played one game over the last month, so we were a bit underdone, but it was good to get a great hit-out like that. Winning it on the bell was unreal,” he said.
“To get another game – and a quite intense game – we couldn’t ask for anything more leading into next week against CYMS.
“We struggled with our talk a bit today and I think that’s due to our fitness being down a bit from not playing but the character was there and if we put our best game forward we should be able to give them [CYMS] a good shake.”
Tony Clevin got the Saints on the board first but Panthers took a 6-4 lead when Pat McGarry found the line and Joey Bugg converted.
Clevin picked up his second try of the day before the break to get Pat’s ahead 10-6 but the back-and-forth nature of the score continued when Jordan Naylor levelled proceedings back up.
Joey Coughlan picked up a field goal as half-time approached to give the Saints a one point lead.
Panthers made the better start to the second half through unconverted tries to Jarrod Seager and Dylan Battersby.
That put the Saints in the uncomfortable position of being more than a converted try off the pace with only 20 minutes to go.
Pat’s struggled to find consistency in the second half as chances went begging due to their errors.
However, their luck looked as if it might turn around when Kurt Toole pounced on a Panthers error, which came from the men in black inside their own in-goal.
Toole’s try was quickly backed up by a four-pointer to teammate AJ Piper.
Clevin’s missed conversions on those tries would come back to haunt the Saints.
Panthers began to pepper the Saints line with repeat attacks inside the final five minutes but the Saints line appeared up to the task.
That was until Olsen’s magic moment by the left post.
Pat’s will play Cowra Magpies in the minor semi-final.
