With two rounds of the regular season remaining, Souths sits in sixth spot, four points outside the top four.

With Confederates' stunning run putting them inside the four, the title race between three sides battling for one spot will shape the competition's finals run.

To crack that top four Souths not only must defeat Confederates and Bathurst City, but hope other results falls its way as well. And winning games at the back end of the season is something the Bathurst side has struggled with in recent years.

The past three years over the final five rounds of the regular season, Souths has managed three draws but has not registered a win.

Even in 2015 when Souths last qualified for a finals campaign, the two blues managed just two wins over the final five rounds.

But what will work in Souths' favour is its willingness to fight,its hunger to succeed and the faith that it can match - and beat - teams above it on the ladder.

"We know that we can play good hockey, so I think just realising that helps. We came off after that loss against Lithgow Panthers in Lithgow and we were all disappointed in that, so there's that expectation that we can be competitive in games and can come away with the wins," experienced Souths player Mandy Griffiths said.

"We know we are in with a fight against some of those top teams given the hockey we've played against them.

"We are comfortable in the hockey we are playing and that is what we are focusing on and hopefully the results do what they need to do.

"We haven't talked to much about finals and our spot on the ladder, it's more been about the contest within the game.

"We enjoy our wins, but we want the win. That's how we play every game because we know we can get it."

While Souths went down to Orange CYMS last Saturday, the two blues are one of just two teams to have bettered the competition leaders this season.

Souths has also come from behind to win games in 2019 and players have handled positional shuffles to cover for absent team-mates.

All those elements are things Griffiths and her team-mates draw confidence from.

"We've proven this year that if a goal comes against us, we do come back out, the game is not lost for us. We have faith in our ability as a team and what we can produce. I think that's really good," she said.

"You are never going to be 100 percent satisfied with where you're at, you always want to improve, but week in and week out at training we are working on things that have come from the game that we just want to fine tune a little bit more.

"We all understand what all of our roles are and that is helping ... we're still playing good hockey and having wins. That's been really good this year, we know that if we don't have our top 11 we can still win games and that builds confidence as well."

Souths will resume its Premier League finals bid after this Saturday's general competition bye.