BATHURST’S quest to earn promotion from the NSW Open Men’s Field State Championships second division is on track after a positive run of results at Moorebank over the weekend.
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The team went through Saturday’s opening two matches with clean sheet wins and yesterday continued their good form with three straight wins shooting them to the top of their pool.
Knowing that they were a competitive side in division one a year earlier meant Bathurst were determined to show they deserved their spot there once again.
Bathurst claimed a 5-0 win over Goulburn in their opener early on Saturday morning and returned in the afternoon to beat North West Sydney 2 by 2-0.
Central West rivals Orange provided a big test and the Bathurst team had to fight back from a goal down yesterday to win 2-1.
Goals from Riley Hanrahan and Jaden Ekert put Bathurst back in front before the break, and after a tense second half neither team could get on the board again.
It means regardless of the result in last night’s final pool match against Tamworth, Bathurst finished at the head of pool A.
The win over the North West Sydney side was the confidence booster for captain Shane Conroy.
“That was always going to be our hardest game so that was great to win ... We are down a division this year but there’s still never an easy match in this competition,” he said.
Conroy said even though it hasn’t been perfect hockey every match from Bathurst, his team have always been up for the challenge.
“Today’s game against Orange was a bit of a scrappy game. We played very well against North West Sydney last night but the match against Orange today was a little more disappointing,” he said.
“Orange were always the much more hungry team because they came into that game needing a win to still be able to make the semis. The boys did well to hold them out.
“I’d say this division is at the level of a couple of quality Premier League Hockey games. It’s good because all the boys in this team have played at that sort of level before.”
Bathurst will play the second place finisher from Pool B in the semi-final at 8am this morning.