How will Orange Hawks react to defeat?
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That’s the prudent question leading into Sunday’s Group 10 league tag preliminary final, one Hawks coach Marty Lyden and Bathurst Panthers skipper Monique Christie-Johnston are both asking.
It’s a complete unknown at the moment, considering the grand final qualifier will be the first time the two blues have had to do it this season.
Until last weekend’s major semi-final loss to Bathurst St Pat’s the two blues were undefeated, Lyden’s confident his side can bounce back though.
“We were flat (last week against St Pat’s),” he said.
“It probably wasn’t the best time of year to produce that kind of performance but it’s alright, we’re a much better side than we showed.
“We’re looking forward to playing Panthers again, another game, another crack at [a grand final spot]”
Christie-Johnston, on the other hand, says it remains to be seen how the young, relatively inexperienced – in terms of finals – Hawks side will take the loss.
“[Hawks] are probably going to come out firing and want to get back to that winning streak. It will probably light a bit of a fire in them,” she said.
“But it could also work in our favour, they could be a little bit reserved maybe coming into the game which could impact them. It could go either way.”
Hawks will head in favourites, having knocked Panthers off twice in 2017. The two blues won the regular season encounters 28-6 and then 14-8.
“We’ve got to turn up and expect them to turn up like they have all year against us. We’d expect them to bring a pretty good game, so we have to do the same thing,” Christie-Johnston said. Kick-off is at 10.30am, at Oberon.
