Not only was it the first time in six years that Bathurst had qualified for a grand final in the Basketball NSW Youth Men’s competition, but the Goldminers boasted one of the competition’s leading players.

Matt Gray, who did not take part in finals weekend due to other representative commitments, snared a bag of honours. He scored 569 points from 16 games at an average of 35.56.

“He got rookie of the year, he got MVP, he got all star five and he got highest point scorer, so he picked up four trophies plus his runner-up trophy,” Goldminers coach Andrew Osborn said.

“We were all joking we needed a semi-trailer to get his awards home.”

As for the Goldminers’ overall season, Osborn was happy with what his side had achieved.

“We had a goal to finish first or second in our pool and we achieved that. We had a goal to make the play-offs, that final four, so we did that by beating St George. Then the next goal for us was to make the final, so they were our three goals and we achieved those,” he said.

“It looks like I'm going to have a reasonable number of these guys back up next year, so that's encouraging. The average age of our side is 17½, and it's an under 22 competition. If they stick together they can become a formidable unit.”