Lithgow Panthers return to top of men's Premier League Hockey ladder with win over Wanderers

The purples led early in the first half after Mitch Thompson's brace but didn't have it all their own way on home soil, Wanderers' star Bailey Ferguson finding the back of the net to reduce the margin to one.

The visiting Orange club threatened more goals too, but an unfortunate penalty in from the Wanderers' defence allowed Panthers centre half and captain Nic Milne to tuck one away and give his side a match-winning buffer.

"That third quarter was a bit tough but we dug deep and came out of it which is always good," Milne said.

He said Panthers went into the match a little under strength.

"We had a very young side ... but the young blokes held their own, so it's going to be hard for these old blokes to get back into it next week," he said.

Milne said despite a hard game the team gelled together and came out on top.

"We dug deep and came out of it which is always good, it's a team effort," he said.

Standout players for the Panthers were Tom Luchetti and Tom Piggott.

"We were missing one of our inside forwards so they had big shoes to fill, they did that quite well," Milne said.

Orange Wanderers captain Logan Dolbel said to go down by just two goals to Panthers at home was a pretty good result for any team.

"There's a lot of positives to take away from the game, our mid-field guys are all away this weekend but we picked up a couple of blokes and played with one sub," Dolbel revealed.

"It was pretty hard on the legs, it just got away from us a little bit there at the end but I definitely wouldn't say we were out of the game at all."

Despite another loss, Dolbel said the team played really well and rolled the ball around a lot better.

"Everyone dug deep, it was a lot better result than we've had the last few weeks so for everyone to step up it was really good," he added.

"We haven't had our win yet, we're still working on it."