That group contained some of the best and most experienced players in the competition.

Today when she runs onto the field for City’s second clash of the season with local rivals Souths at 12.20pm, she will carry with her more experience than most of her team-mates combined.

But already she has been won over by the general level of talent that has started to shine for City, despite an indifferent run of results in the last few weeks.

“Myself and one or two others have been there for a while, but having taken three years off while I was overseas, the team looks a lot different,” Bayliss said.

“There have been a lot of changes, most of the older players have moved on, but the young ones who’ve come into this side are phenomenal.

“Putting myself in their shoes, I can remember starting in Premier League and we’d go to Dubbo or somewhere and you’d be happy to get a couple of minutes. These girls are good enough to be playing nearly an entire game.”

During a visit home a couple of years ago, Bayliss explained to The Western Advocate that the standard of collegiate hockey in the United States was well below what she’d expected. She gives the impression that she still feels the same.

“The first thing I noticed coming back here though was the quality of the hockey and how much better it is in Australia,” she said.

“Seeing the lift in standard during the first game in Premier League compared to the US, I was worried that I might have dropped off a bit, but as I’ve played a few extra games I’ve started to find my feet again.”

City’s main rivalries have generally been with Lithgow Panthers as well as St Pat’s.  However, the emergence of Souths as potential contender makes matches with them vitally important.

Already City boast one win over them this season, a 4-0 effort in round three.

Bayliss said there will be some feeling between the two sides, but that it is important to keep everything in perspective.

“I think Souths have always been a competitive side and we certainly take them seriously as a strong team this year, but we were able to get a fantastic win against them the first time we met them,” she said.

“It would be silly to say there’s not a bit of local rivalry there, but as a team ourselves we have to look at each game individually and treat it the same way – every team in this competition is a competitor.

“If you take one side more or less seriously than another, that’s when you start to have problems.”

The last fortnight for City has been a tough one as they suffered defeats at the hands of St Pat’s and Panthers, though the 3-1 loss to the Saints was reversed after a player registration issue.

As it stands City sit in second spot still, but a loss to the two blues would drop them to at least third, and probably fourth with Parkes taking on the struggling Kinross-CYMS team.

“In the last couple of weeks we’ve been doing some experimenting with a few new tactics and systems,” Bayliss said.

“We agreed that we’d try these out against the better teams and early in both games they probably didn’t work as well as we wanted them too, especially in the first 15 or so minutes against Panthers.

“I’m not sure what the plan is this week, but I’m guessing we might look at going back to what had been working for us.”