BATHURST Panthers will have their good early season Group 10 premier league form put to the ultimate test tomorrow afternoon when they head to Oberon to face the resurgent Tigers on their home ground.

Unbeaten in three rounds, Oberon have made an early claim for title favouritism on the back of Matt, Trent and George Rose’s impact. There is already little doubt that their presence has lifted the players around them.

The Tigers’ physicality combined with their strike power means they don’t really have a weakness, at least not one that anyone has discovered yet. The challenge for Panthers is to be the first team to find it.

Panthers have been good so far in easily outclassing Orange Hawks and last Sunday they got the better of St Pat’s. They lost a close contest to Blayney despite scoring five tries to four in between.

But there is no doubt Panthers have to improve to compete with the Tigers.

“They have good players right across the park, but obviously the Rose brothers have made a big difference. George is playing 50 quality minutes a game in the front row, Trent has been very good early in the season as well,” Panthers manager Danny Dwyer said.

“Matt Rose is a class player and still proving very hard for opponents to handle in the halves. From all reports, their whole team has lifted, though.”

With many of the Panthers players having spent time on the field alongside Matt and Trent Rose, and all of them being aware of the way George plays, there won’t be a lot of mystery about what they’re going to face.

But stopping it is another thing altogether.

To do that, their game awareness will have to be spot on, something that wasn’t always evident in the 30-22 win over St Pat’s last Sunday where a couple of lapses nearly cost them.

“I didn’t actually see last Sunday’s game, but from what I was told the speed of the play the ball was an area where we sometimes let Pat’s get away, and in the end the penalty count and the amount of errors Pat’s made probably had a big bearing on the result,” Dwyer said.

“We were ready for them to play a pretty expansive game, but didn’t always prepare ourselves for it once the game started. We can’t afford to have any lapses like that this week.”

Panthers will be boosted by the return of first choice fullback Jeremy Gordon from injury, though his stand-in Bradyn Cassidy did a more than adequate job last round.

Player-coach Todd Barrow has strung together three full games at five-eighth after he spent much of last season battling injury. He looks to have formed a good playmaking pairing with Claude Gordon.

Having their fullback in the starting line-up, as well as the good form of hooker Nick Loader, gives the men in black a dangerous looking spine.

“Todd’s happy with how he’s going, he didn’t get much of a pre-season last year because of a calf injury and he was never able to really get to full fitness,” Dwyer said.

“Now he’s fit, he’s not missed a minute of any game this season and he’s happy to be out there at number six controlling things.”

BATHURST PANTHERS: 1 Jeremy Gordon, 2 Mitch Davis, 3 Blake Lawson, 4 Jye Barrow, 5 Bradyn Cassidy, 6 Todd Barrow, 7 Claude Gordon, 8 Brent Seager, 9 Nick Loader, 10 Greg Behan, 11 Kyle Byrnes, 12 Leigh Monaghan, 13 Jake Betts, 14 Ben Gunn, 15 Jed Betts, 16 Jay McClintock, 17 Jarrod Seager.