He let his players know the effort they had produced in the first 10 minutes at the Bathurst Indoor Stadium was not good enough.

The Goldminers responded by scoring the next 21 points to set up a 86-71 win which moved them from sixth spot into fifth on the competition ladder.

“I got cranky. I said it like it needed to be said, a little bit blase the boys were, so they needed a bit of a rev up,” Osborn said.

“That was when we really played top-class basketball.

“In that first five minutes of that second quarter, that probably sealed the game for us, it was champagne stuff.”

With percentages alone separating the rivals heading into Saturday’s match, it offered the Goldminers a chance to strengthen their hold on a top-six spot.

But the opening quarter, which the Razorbacks won 21-20, did not see the hosts produce the sort of basketball worthy of a finals hopeful.

After some stern words from Osborn, Bathurst came out in the second term with renewed focus.

A Matt Gray three-pointer – part of his game-high 28 – 13 seconds into the quarter gave the Goldminers the lead.

That was the start of a 21-point run which took them to a 41-21 lead and by the time the half-time whistle sounded, the Goldminers held a 47-39 advantage.

From there Bathurst went on with the game, leading by 20 heading into the final 10 minutes which allowed Osborn to give all members of his squad court time.

They closed out the match against the Razorbacks, notching up their fourth win of the season.

Still, the coach lamented that the intensity shown at the start of the second quarter was not maintained in the terms which followed.

“Unfortunately they didn’t keep it up for the rest of the game. They outscored us in the fourth quarter, but I predominantly played the bench in that quarter,” he said.

“I had a couple of guys with niggling injuries, so I thought there was no point running those guys when we had really got the game won. It was just a matter of how much we were going to win by.

“It was a bit like a yo-yo, we were up and down. At times we were brilliant, at other times we were awful.”