The Bathurst side journeyed to Sydney Olympic Park hoping to push their opponents in the nine-team contest.

They managed to do much more than that.

The signs were there early that Bathurst could feature in the finals when they won their first three matches of the cup against Inner Western Suburbs (15-10), Baulkham Hills (21-18) and Lismore (22-17).

Bathurst were are force to be reckoned with as they won six of their eight pool matches. They finished third on the ladder and booked a semi-final meeting with Sutherland Shire.

Just like they did in their pool match, Bathurst prevailed by two points (21-19) to get themselves within one more win of a grand final appearance.

The might of eventual winners Hastings Valley was too much for Bathurst in a 21-15 loss.

Sutherland got their revenge over Bathurst, 24-19, in the third place playoff.

The defeat didn’t dampen the mood of Bathurst coach Michael Germech or his squad.

Bathurst’s big State Cup showing capped off a magic season, which included a division two State Championships crown and a Central West Regional Championships success.

“We were really stoked to finish inside the top four. We managed to beat a couple of Sydney teams along the way,” Germech said.

“We started with three straight wins and then we lost to Hastings Valley by only two. We also came from behind to beat Newcastle by two in our last Saturday game.

“Northern Suburbs beat us in our last pool game, and they’re a strong club. Unfortunately we lost to Sutherland in our final after beating them in the semi-final.

“We gave a lot of our younger players a chance to have a go for that game. We left Grace [Broadfield], Sam [Thompson] and Jess [Matthews] on the bench.”

Germech said the result will change Bathurst’s goals for the 2018 season.

“There’s no doubt of that,” he said.

“There were moments of us hedging our bets and not being certain of where we would end up … but that’s no more. There’s no hiding from anyone any longer.

“There is no ambushing anyone. People know who we are now and they know to look out for Bathurst.

“We said that we wanted to learn things from the State Cup weekend, and we did take a lot away from that high standard, but now we’re going to have higher expectations going forward.”

Germech said the players and staff among the opens squad have been cohesive from the opening game.

“We have a group of players who have not just managed to win but who have enjoyed competing alongside each other,” he said.

“Over the four competitions we played this year we used 16 players. That’s been our huge strength, knowing that we’ve got strong players we can bring in. I hope there’s more talented players around Bathurst who look at how this team went and think ‘wow, I’d like to be a part of that success’.

“We’ve built up a solid base. Now we know what we can do and how much we can achieve.

“I had great support from Kim Thompson, our manager, and Catherine Welch, our assistant coach.”