IT has been nine years since Bathurst Panthers last played in a Group 10 premier league grand final but after a solid 2016 to date, the current side is two wins away from doing so again.
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But winning those two games is no easy task for the men in black.
Firstly Panthers will do battle with Bathurst rivals St Pat’s at Carrington Park on Sunday and if successful in that fixture, will take on minor premiers Orange CYMS in the grand final qualifier.
CYMS are the defending premiers and in the past six years, have only failed to qualify for the decider once. That was in 2014 when St Pat’s hoisted the premiership trophy after beating Cowra 34-12.
Panthers has less finals experience amongst its current squad than those those two rivals, yet manager Danny Dwyer does not see it as a negative.
It has made the Todd Barrow coached Panthers keen to impress against St Pat’s on Sunday.
“They haven’t played a lot of semi-final football over the last five years, so they are looking forward to their chance on Sunday,” Dwyer said.
“Todd played a grand final at Hawks, Trent Hotham and Jeremy Gordon played for Panthers in the 2007 grand final side, but I think other than that – aside from the semi-final in 2014 – being such a young side a lot of those guys have not played much senior finals football.
“It will be a good learning curve for them, but I think with the mixture in the side we have got with the guys who have played that finals football, I don’t think it will be a problem.
“I’d expect it won’t be too daunting for them, they will be able to hold their own for sure.”
Panthers slipped from second on the ladder to third in last Sunday’s final round when going down 34-22 to Mudgee.
St Pat’s leapfrogged the men in black with a 20-18 victory over CYMS, but Sunday’s semi-final will still be played at Panthers’ home ground – Carrington Park.
“It would have been nice to host the semi-final, but we still get to play against St Pat’s on our home ground, so we can’t be too disappointed with that,” Dwyer said.
“I think the guys were underdone at Mudgee, it was our first game in three weeks, but it was a good, tough, physical game to have going into the semi-finals.”
In two previous meetings between the Bathurst rivals this year Panthers emerged victorious – winning 30-22 and 20-14 – but Dwyer knows another success will be hard earned.
“Those past wins do help confidence wise, but every game is a new game. You can never sort of say ‘Well we beat them before, so we’ll beat them again.’,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter where each other are running, it’s always a tough contest and we aren’t expecting anything different on Sunday. Pat’s are in really good form, obviously to finish with a win over CYMS is something you can’t discount.”
Sunday’s major preliminary semi-final between Panthers and St Pat’s will kick off at 1.45pm at Carrington Park.