The two sides were both well and truly in contention to claim fourth spot but Souths fall out of that race now and Confederates move four points clear of fifth-placed Bathurst City, who lost 2-1 to Lithgow Panthers on the weekend.

Those results set up a juicy final-round clash between the two sides but with their buffer Confederates only need a draw to ensure they'll play finals hockey, a solitary point would be enough to seal fourth spot.

In fact they don't even need that.

Although it's a tiny, four-goal buffer Confederates' goal difference advantage gives them a small window to suffer a narrow loss and still win through.

Confederates claimed their victory in a topsy-turvy affair at Orange Hockey Centre on Saturday afternoon, the match-winner coming with just minutes left on the clock.

The two sides traded goals throughout and the two blues drew level at 2-all seven minutes out from full-time but couldn't hold the young Orange side, who were missing NSW Country representative Millah Allcorn, out at the end of the fourth quarter.

While naturally disappointed his side couldn't keep their finals hopes alive with a victory on the road Souths coach Chris Stafford actually labelled the performance on the two blues' best of the year, one they'll look to build on in next weekend's final-round Bathurst derby against St Pat's.

"It's up there as one of our better games for the year," he said.

"Needing the win, we pushed up really hard towards the end and that's when their third goal came.

"If we had kept our structure the same there's every chance they still score that goal but it's nowhere near as likely.

"We probably had as many shots on goal as we've had all year but we didn't put away as many as we needed to.

"It was a fairly exciting game to watch since it was so end-to-end."

India Draper found the back of the net for Confederates and so did Jade Williams, with Heidi Townsend knocking in their other goal.

Ex-Services suffered a 3-2 loss at St Pat's hands.