With Saturday's monumental victory over perennial women's Premier League Hockey heavyweights Lithgow Panthers CYMS rocketed to the top of the table, but coach Pete Shea said the Orange side will be keeping a lid on any excitement for the time being.
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Shea rated his troops' performance in Saturday afternoon's 2-1 victory at Orange Hockey Centre as one of, if not their best of the 2019 season, but conceded the green and golds are "still building to where we want to be come the end of the season".
"It's certainly really encouraging to be able to put a really good performance together against a really good side like Panthers, but we've still been a little bit inconsistent over the last month or so," Shea said, his side now two points clear of the Lithgow outfit.
It's the sides that have that consistency and ... that aura of self-belief around them that tend to do really well at the pointy end.
- CYMS coach Pete Shea
"Everyone played well on the weekend and I was actually a little bit surprised with how well we did play, I actually think we dominated most of the game, but we're still building slowly to where we want to be come the end of the season.
"When you look to semi-finals, and finals, in any sport, you can't afford to have those poor performances here and there. It's the sides that have that consistency and that, I don't want to say arrogance, but that aura of self-belief around them that tend to do really well at the pointy end.
"It's great to be on top at what I guess you'd call the turning point of the season, but we'll keep trying to build that consistency and self-belief over the last eight or nine rounds before the finals."
After holding out an early Panthers short corner CYMS took control of the clash and their dominance reaped rewards, Jemma Luelf and Kayla Russell's goals giving the hosts a 2-nil lead.
Panthers did hit back in the second half of the game and they had a handful of chances in the dying stages to equalise, and even potentially snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but the green and golds' Kayla Russell-led defensive unit held.
"We did put ourselves under a bit of pressure towards the end of the game, Panthers had three short corners in the last 90 seconds," Shea explained.
"I think we were confident we could hold them out though, which we did in the end."
Earlier in the day at the same venue Confederates claimed outright fourth spot as well, cementing their place in the finals frame with a landmark, 2-nil victory over the somewhat struggling Bathurst City.
Combined with Bathurst Souths' loss to St Pat's, Confederates' win pushes them four points clear of the fifth-placed two blues, who are two points clear of Bathurst City now too.
Last year was the first year in recent memory City didn't earn a grand final berth but the perennial contenders have had a slow start to 2019, winning just one game and salvaging two draws to sit sixth.
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It wasn't such a good day for Orange's third women's Premier League Hockey side, Ex-Services.
The blue and golds suffered their fifth loss of the season, going down 4-1 to the previously-winless Lithgow Zig Zag outfit.
The Lithgow side's always substantially stronger on home turf and Zig Zag used that advantage well on Saturday afternoon, with Tiana Anderson scoring a brace while Tayla Deveigne and Maddy McLean found the back of the net as well.
Larissa Atkinson scored Ex-Services' lone goal.
- ORANGE CYMS 2 (Jemma Luelf, Kayla Russell) def LITHGOW PANTHERS 1
- CONFEDERATES 2 def BATHURST CITY 0
- LITHGOW ZIG ZAG 4 (Tiana Anderson 2, Tayla Deveigne, Maddy McLean) def EX-SERVICES 1 (Larissa Atkinson)
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