Panthers travel to Oberon on Sunday for the Group 10 Premier League season opener and a chance to get a tally in the wins column early after finishing last year in seventh. 

The Panthers are fielding one of the youngest squads of the Group 10 season. Since their fourth place in 2011, the side have struggled to be competitive, but they have retained a lot of their core players.

Panthers coach John Fearnley is confident his youthful men in black are the real deal this year, saying some exciting prospects will be taking the field.

“We had a really good off-season and a couple of good young players come on board like Cody Robbins at fullback, Blake Dean in the halves and Blake Seager in the second row ... young Pat McGarry has been a surprise for us as well and he gets a start in the front row,” he said. 

“The boys have trained well. Last couple of weeks we’ve been working on ball skills and sorting our combinations out. What I’ve been trying to do is just get some consistency into our game.

“We’ve been in a rebuilding phase for the last couple of years. A positive thing for us, though, is there’s nine Bathurst juniors in this side.”

Robbins joins the side from CYMS, while Gundagai’s Dean is shaping up as first choice for the five-eighth position this year. Luke Carpenter will be a valuable asset at hooker as he returns from injury.

Former Panthers coach Scott Traynor will be calling the shots for Oberon from the sideline.

The Tigers made finals football again last year, progressing into the second week, and if both sides continue their form, the home side will be the favourites for the round one clash.

One of the major problems for the Panthers last year was they played their matches with bursts of brilliance before switching off at inopportune moments. 

Fearnley believes that if that pattern continues early on in 2014, the side will find themselves on the wrong end of the scoreboard once again.

“Last year we beat CYMS and had Lithgow Workies at 20-0 at one stage, but we just couldn’t be consistent,” he said. 

“Teams would put some points on us and then run in two or three quick tries and we couldn’t reply to it. We need to cut that out,” he said.

“One thing we’ve touched on is that we need to be winning these early games. Towards the end of the season it can get difficult with injuries ... so you have to be up there.”

Oberon Sports Ground is the venue as the sides begin their new season at 2.30pm on Sunday.

BATHURST PANTHERS: 1 Cody Robbins, 2 Mitch Davis, 3 Matt Rose, 4 William Kennedy, 5 Josh Small, 6 Blake Dean, 7 Joey Bugg, 8 Brent Seager, 9 Luke Carpenter, 10 Pat McGarry, 11 Blake Seager, 12 Blake Lawson, 13 Michael Ingerwesen, 14 Trent Rose, 15 Jake Betts, 16 Stan Latu, 17 Matt Woolmington