CURRENTLY sitting in fourth on the  Group 10 premier league ladder, Bathurst Panthers manager Danny Dwyer believes his side have earned a pass mark from their first bracket of games.

However, Dwyer said Panthers now need to set their sights on going from a team who is doing enough, to being a team that is dominating. 

That mission begins against Mudgee tomorrow afternoon at Carrington Park.

Panthers squared their opening five games in which they played exclusively away from home – picking up two wins and a draw – before going into last Sunday’s bye after victories over Lithgow and Cowra. 

With 11 competition points for their efforts, there is little between Panthers and third-placed St Pat’s, while Mudgee and Blayney (10 points) are close behind.

Even on for-and-against there isn’t much to split Panthers and the Dragons – the Bathurst outfit’s differential is a solitary point better.

It makes matches against the other sides in that area of the table so much more important for Panthers, as six teams try to squeeze into five finals spots.

“It doesn’t look like there is going to be a lot between any of those top six teams, St Pat’s beating Oberon reinforced that last weekend,” Dwyer said.

“Depending on a few results in the coming weeks, it isn’t hard to imagine that the finals positions could be decided on the last day of the regular season the way things are going.

“I think Cowra are probably out of contention now after losing to Mudgee in their last game, but those top six are all evenly matched. It’s a strong competition in that regard.”

After managing to cope without star front rower Greg Behan, who returns tomorrow, Panthers will now have to deal with the absence of playmaker Claude Gordon for at least the next few games.

He broke his arm early against Cowra a fortnight ago but gamely played on, the injury is more severe than first thought.

Making things tougher for Panthers is that his logical back-up in Trent Hotham is also unavailable as he gets married this weekend.

Thankfully Panthers have enough depth to cover the absences, with Jeremy Gordon switching from fullback into the halves alongside captain-coach Todd Barrow.

Bradyn Cassidy has deputised at the back before and will do so once more.

Naturally, taming ex-NRL star and blockbusting forward Jack Afamasaga will be paramount for the Bathurst team in shutting down the Dragons.

“I think injuries and work commitments affected Jack’s impact in the early rounds, but he is back and playing well by all reports,” Dwyer said.

“Although we won in the end against Cowra, a lot of our guys said that it was one of the toughest games they’ve had this year. A week later they got touched up 48-18 by Mudgee.

“I don’t know if that is a sign of Cowra playing poorly or not, but I think it shows that Mudgee are pretty capable of turning it on when it clicks.

“We had the hardest run of any side in the first block of games, with only one home game in the first seven, and a lot of the better sides were in that run of away games.

“Even the matches we’ve lost we had chances to win right up until the end, so although we haven’t always played to our best, we’ve done well so far. Now we have to turn that into a big block of wins through this middle stage of the competition.”

Panthers take on Mudgee from 2pm tomorrow afternoon.

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