Goldminers have a big target on their back as the team in second position, and the Razorbacks – battling hard for a finals spot – have an arrow drawn and ready to fire.

This match will be the first of four successive away matches for the Goldminers against top eight teams.

Competition leaders St George Saints awaits Goldminers after this game.

With that in mind Osborn wants his Bathurst boys to play sensible basketball.

“These next few games worry me because we’re playing four strong sides away from home,” he said.

“Liverpool are a good team who move the ball well, but given our recent work in offence and our defensive improvement we should have their measure.

“They have a couple of big boys who move well inside. We’ve got the boys to counteract that play as long as we’re at our best.”

Osborn has cited the previous match against the Razorbacks as one which helped turn his side’s season around.

After having gaps in their defence exposed the Goldminers found themselves lucky to come away with an 86-71 win at home.

“Even though they are currently seventh and have a 7-6 record we struggled against them last time, although we didn’t play at our best,” Osborn said.

“In fact, it was that game against Liverpool which made us rethink the way we do our man-on-man defence. When we used our new style against Illawarra in the following game we saw great improvements.”

There’s plenty of the line for the Goldminers in this match.

A win for Bathurst could take them to the top of the table (should the Saints lose to the Newcastle Hunters) but a loss could drop them as low as fifth.