WITH last weekend’s loss, Wanderers slipped to sixth on the men’s Premier League Hockey ladder, and the Orange side virtually needs to win its remaining four games as a result.

Not an easy task in itself, made all the more difficult without one of the side’s stars, especially considering Wanderers takes on reigning champions Lithgow Panthers today.

Yesterday, in the lead up to his side’s clash against the 2014 premiers, gun attacking midfielder Keiran Gentles confirmed his shoulder injury has ruled him out for the remainder of the season.

Gentles has scored six of his side’s 29 goals this year - combined with Matt Johnson’s nine, the pair have scored over 50 per cent of Wanderers’ goals in 2015 - proving his impact on the side, which hasn’t scored a win in the last month of hockey.

“He is a big loss. I’m not going to say it won’t be more difficult without Kizza (Gentles), but we’ve won games in the past without him,” Alex Said, Wanderers’ co-captain, explained.

“His injury really just brings us back to basically the team we’ve fielded the last couple of seasons, and not having him there means the rest of the guys on the field need to step up in his place.”

Wanderers sit four points out of the four, and trail the third-placed Panthers by another two points on top of that. 

With, comparatively, one of the easier runs home, Said explained his side has a serious chance of winning the remainder of its games and qualifying for the finals, but he conceded that means nothing if the side can’t score a victory today.

“We can definitely do it, although we would still somewhat be relying on other results,” Said proclaimed.

“We should beat Bathurst City, and Lithgow Zig-Zag and (Bathurst) Souths aren’t unbeatable. But, we need to get over Panthers [today]. They retain ball really well, and counter attack quickly.

“But they have lost a few players too, and I think playing in Orange with the potential of bad weather brings them back to the pack. We’ll need a big defensive effort, and we need to go back to doing the basics well again.

“We’ve lost that in recent games.”

The game kicks off at 1.10pm today at Orange Hockey Complex.

ORANGE WANDERERS: Daryl Kennewell, Zachary Royle, Jayden Watson, Gerry Shea, Henry Jones, Alex Said, Matt Johnson, Hayden Dillon, Louis Shea, Tom Reddan, Adam Hurford, Luke Skelton, Connor Morris, Adam Hukins, Nick Sharp.