Bathurst Panthers came out of the Carrington Park sheds after half-time in their Group 10 premier league match against the Lithgow Workies looking like a whole new team, running away to a 32-10 win.

Panthers produced 20 points, while keeping the visitors off the board, to help put a forgettable half of football behind them.

“That first half wasn’t us. We’re a way better team than that and it all comes down to attitude really,” Panthers player-coach Doug Hewitt said.

“We talked about getting back on top but we tried too hard in stages. It was ill discipline. We didn’t have respect for the ball and we were giving away silly penalties. 

“In that second half we turned things around and once we got that first try … we started getting back to our game.”

Instead of putting together completions Workies and Panthers were building up a collection of errors inside the opening 10 minutes.

Workies were gifted a huge slice of possession and field position in that time but it was the hosts who scored first.

Lithgow produced back-to-back forward passes and were punished by Blake Lawson, who opened up the Panthers account in the 14^th minute.

The converted try didn’t do anything to improve the Panthers’ woeful ball security.

Workies finally found a breakthrough – after being handed plenty of chances to strike throughout the game – thanks to their centre Matt Swift.

His unconverted try put Lithgow on the board.

Panthers squandered several chances to extend their lead and instead it was Workies who scored next when Riley Allan found the line.

Lithgow’s lead was short lived. Panthers moved the ball to the left and put Willie Wright into space, allowing the hosts to take a 12-10 lead into half-time.

Nick Loader’s try six minutes into the new half seemed to spark something within the Panthers.

Within the next 10 minutes Wright would add his second try of the day and Doug Hewitt would also cross the stripe, putting himself in the right place after a Jed Betts line break.

Braydon Wicks’ try in the right hand corner with 15 minutes to go sealed the result.

“It was a momentum game. We couldn’t get it going in the first half and then there was too many mistakes in the second half,” Lithgow coach Graeme Osborne said. 

“You make errors like that against a good side like this then they’ll capitalise on it.”