By COURTNEY WARD

THEY may not be heading into tomorrow's match against the Hornsby Spiders on the back of a win, but the Bathurst Goldminers Youth League division two men's side will still be carrying plenty of confidence with them.

Last weekend the Goldminers went down by four points to Parramatta, but more importantly they produced what coach Amanda Cheers labelled as their "best team performance" of season 2010.

It is that sort of performance which has the Goldminers confident of finally notching up their first home court win of the season at the Spiders' expense. So far they have tried and failed to do so four times.

Aside from notching up a win at the Bathurst Indoor Sports Stadium, a victory over the Spiders would snap a three-game losing streak for the Goldminers.

Another defeat would severely hamper their finals aspirations.

"As we've dropped all the way to seventh it's time to begin to panic if we still want to make the top four," Cheers said.

"It is crucial to get a big win on the board this weekend against Hornsby."

Even though Bathurst has won as many as games as the teams immediately above them on the ladder -Manly and Liverpool -the Goldminers have lost one extra seeing them behind on percentages.

It is a point of frustration for the Goldminers as they have defeated both Manly and Liverpool this season, but given the closeness of these three sides a positive result against the Spiders will be a big boost.

"We've sure got our work cut out [to make the finals], but we all believe we can following last weekend's strong performance," Cheers said.

While the Spiders currently sit in ninth with only one victory to their credit, Bathurst will start tomorrow's 5pm game as favourites.

The team's zone offence looked much more fluent against Parramatta, an area which will need to be strong again given the Spiders' big man Jack Leedham has been dominating the paint of late.

"Last time we played them, they [Hornsby] relied a lot on their four and five men getting touches inside, so we will have to limit that this weekend," Cheers said.

With nearly a full squad available tomorrow and guard Joe Tighe building towards his best form, the Goldminers know this has to be their chance to get on a roll. What makes the game more important, is that Bathurst don't play for three weeks after Saturday due to the long weekend and a ill-timed bye.

BATHURST GOLDMINERS: Kyle Simpson, Matt Edwards, Courtney Ward, Michael Cox, Joe Tighe, Will Aisake, Jesse Ferguson, Kieran Osborn, Cameron Radburn, Michael Kneller, Craig Hilderbrandt, Jayden Taylor.