As they prepare to take on Lithgow Workies tomorrow in the penultimate round of the home-and-away season, they are within touching distance of seeing all their hopes realised.

But they still have a long way to go, and coach John Fearnley is desperate for his side not to be thinking of anything other than knocking over Workies for the second time this season when they run onto Lithgow Showground.

Orange CYMS’ ongoing woes have left the defending premiers just two points – one win – ahead of Panthers in the fifth semi-final spot.

CYMS will start as underdogs tomorrow against Mudgee, and if CYMS lose and Panthers can make up a for-and-against gap of 17 points, they could find themselves in fifth by tomorrow night.

“There is a real danger for us now that we have gotten to where we are that we might lose focus on the job we need to be doing this week,” Fearnley said.

“We still have a big task in front of us and we still need things to go our way. Lithgow are a very dangerous side, they’re at home, and though they don’t have a finals spot on the line they will be playing for pride.

“If we take them lightly at all, we will find ourselves in trouble and undo our good work.”

Workies have had a season not dissimilar to that of Panthers in 2014, despite being without arguably their two best players of the last decade in Brendon and Jono Van Veen.

They sit one spot behind Panthers with four wins and 10 losses, but have defeated co-leaders St Pat’s, were within two points of Cowra and led the flying Orange Hawks for much of last week, all during the last six weeks.

“Have a look through their side, and it is pretty surprising that they are where they are on the ladder,” Fearnley said.

“The last thing we want to think about is where CYMS are or gett-ing into fifth when we have that team in front of us this weekend.”

Panthers are coming off a strange performance against Blayney last weekend.

Though the Bears’ performance was patchy at best, Panthers were sizzling for the first 25 minutes, running in 28 points and destroying the Blayney defence with almost every attacking raid.

For the next 40 minutes they battled to contain the Bears, conceding four tries themselves and briefly opening themselves up to a soul-destroying loss as Blayney got to within 12 points mid-way through the second half.

The sin-binning of Bears captain-coach Terawhiti Cooper seemed to snap Panthers back into action and they piled on six tries in 15 minutes.

It was their third win in four matches and, again, came largely because of the form of Matt and Trent Rose, and there is a growing list of team-mates who are hitting good form.

“Trent and Matt were fantastic, Blake Lawson and Jake Betts again were very good and Cody Robbins has been excellent over the last two or three games,” the coach said.

“If that continues this week it will go a long way towards another win.”