BATHURST will have a big presence in the Western Zone Bradman Cup side heading to Singleton in January searching for an improvement on last year’s promising showing.

Batsmen Ryan Peacock, Mark Day and Connor Slattery are joined by fast bowler Luke Powell in the side, which kicks off its campaign against Newcastle on January 12.

In January this year Western started promisingly with a good win over Central Northern in the first round, but dropped the next two matches to be bundled out of title contention.

Day and Peacock were part of that side, while newcomers Slattery and Powell bring plenty of representative experience too, albeit in younger age groups in the past.

Peacock is a candidate to lead the side, and says he is confident that they can go all the way.

“I think we’ve got the line-up to win the whole thing, or definitely to get to the final anyway,” he said.

“Our bowling and fielding are real strengths I think.”

“We’re still a decent side with the bat, too, there’s plenty of runs in the top order,” Day added to his team-mate’s sentiments.

It looks likely that the three Bathurst batsmen will be part of the top four, with Day and Slattery opening and Peacock coming in at four.

Slattery and Peacock are coming off good scores at club level in recent first grade outings, while Day has a half-century in local second grade and another in the Western Zone under 16s Premier League.

Powell has 11 wickets so far for Stannies in the ISA competition, at less than 10 apiece, and is set to play an important role with the ball.

All four, plus their fellow squad members, were put through their paces at a relatively intense training camp held at All Saints’ on Friday and Saturday.

Expecting to go through the regular drills of net batting and bowling and taking a few catches, they got given a rude shock on the first morning of the camp.

Local fitness instructor Dan George put them through their paces courtesy of a boot camp, and it took its toll.

“Boot camp was very hard,” Peacock said.

“We didn’t know we were going to cop it. We were pretty glad to get back to the nets after doing that.”

Western kick off with the match against Newcastle before facing Central Northern in round two. 

Their last match will be against Southern.

Any loss will more than likely see them drop out of contention to make the final which will be played on January 15.