HOCKEY
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For a side who have not gone close to reaching their potential, Bathurst City are in a pretty good position entering round eight of the women’s Premier League Hockey competition.
Last year’s defeated grand finalists have, according to captain-coach Lisa Quinn, been adequate without playing their best to date this season, and still they sit in second and have only one loss from six matches.
Today marks what Quinn hopes will be the beginning of a lift to the level she believes they can play at, when they head to Parkes to meet another finals aspirant.
“I think this will be a really decisive game in the context of the season,” she said.
“It is going to go a long way to deciding whether we are a top-two side, or whether Parkes themselves are good enough to be in that bracket.
“I believe that, at our best, we deserve to be in the best two sides in the competition, along with Lithgow Panthers, but these are the games we have to win if we’re going to prove that.
“Playing them in Bathurst they are good, but they are a lot stronger in Parkes, they get a good home crowd behind them and invariably play a lot better than when they are on the road.”
The main reason Quinn is placing so much emphasis on today’s match is the fact that City will be fielding what she says is their strongest line-up so far in 2016.
As it is, the side has only conceded five goals in six matches, three of them in one hit against Panthers.
That is impressive no matter what spin you put on it.
Given that the defence has generally been short of the likes of Hannah Evans and Aimee Ashcroft, both of whom come back today, along with Brooke McFadden, it says even more for how their less experienced players have lifted.
“Not only does those players coming back allow us to put some valuable experience at the defensive end of the field, but it means our players who’ve been in the middle – myself, Ivy Moore, Tirah Jarvis and others – can start to spend a bit more time in attack as well,” Quinn said.
“I couldn’t be happier with how some of those inexperienced players went over the last month or so. They really stepped up and, to only concede five goals, most of them against the best team in the competition, with such a young group was fantastic.
“They did so well to show that they belong at the Premier League level and they’ll take a lot of confidence from it.”