Thanks to promising results in the last few weeks both Confederates and Wanderers are showing signs they could be building to something in the back end of their respective women’s and men’s Premier League Hockey seasons.
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But, both Orange sides face big tests in Saturday’s Bathurst gala day.
Confederates have picked up two wins and two draws in the last month, defeating Ex-Services and Lithgow Zig Zag, while Wanderers scored their maiden win of the season over Ziggies and then backed that up with a hard-fought draw with Bathurst St Pat’s.
This weekend they both face sides sitting second, in the Saints and Bathurst Souths respectively.
Confederates, a side that’s caused St Pat’s some trouble recently, will face a different-looking Saints side too.
Jaden Ekert, the Bathurst outfit’s coach, has vowed to “throw a boomerang in” and mix things up in a bid to challenge his troops and nullify Confederates’ structurally-strong midfield.
“They really put it to us when we played them in that first game. It was 3-1 but at the end of the day we struggled,” he said.
“They’ve got some quality players in key areas and if we’re not switched on, those girls can really hurt us.
“When teams play with structure they become more dangerous. It is easy to mark one or two players out of a game, but it’s hard to mark four or five.
“So we need to be really, really good in the midfield like we were last weekend. I’ve changed a few things, tinkered a few things because you can’t be predictable in this comp, if you are you get found out pretty easy.”
In Wanderers’ case, the two blues have looked every bit a premiership side so far in 2018 and only trail reigning champions Lithgow Panthers on the standings, and hammered Wanderers 8-1 last time around, that result came in round five.
Both games kick-off at 3.20pm.
