That certainly wasn’t the case.

City and Souths locked horns in an entertaining, end-to-end match at Bob Roach Field on Saturday where little separated the teams throughout the 70 minutes.

It took until the 53^rd minute, through Jess Hotham, for the first goal of the game to arrive.

Up to that point both Bathurst squads had looked equally capable of finding the breakthrough.

The City goal gave them a noticeable confidence boost. Kelsey Willott and Reita Holmes added to the advantage before full-time.

“We had all the people in the right places, doing all the right things, but we weren’t finishing off. We got that goal in the second half though and our intensity seemed to pick up,” City’s Lisa Quinn said.

“We got away with three goals in that second half so we’re very happy with that.

“We wanted it too bad and really wanted to make up for our loss last week. We were all so keen to get that ball in the back of the net that we weren’t taking our time in the circle.

“We talked about that at half-time and once we fixed that we started to get shots away.”

Possession was evenly spread over the opening minutes but it was City who were creating the better earlier opportunities.

Kelly Baker’s pass to Jess Hotham gave the City striker a chance to find an early goal but the shot was left of the mark.

Brown was again required to snuff out a close range chance for City in the 14^th minute.

Souths had a golden opportunity to make the first strike when Sophie McCauley worked her way behind the defensive line.

City stopper Maddie Tattersall met her at the top of the circle to bring the run to a halt.

A penalty corner just a minute later require a stop from Souths goalkeeper Kate Brown.

City’s Kirsten Howard sent the ball into the Souths circle and somehow, after a scramble in front of goal, a goal didn’t arrive.

The back-and-forth nature of the opening half continued when a Shannon Fisher break through the middle almost put Souths ahead.

The final five minutes of the half belonged to City but a determined Souths defence weren’t letting anything through.

Chances weren’t easy to come across early in the new half until Willott fired in a dangerous cross in the 40^th minute. No-one was there to meet it.

Hotham was soon on hand to tidy up a scramble in front of the Souths goal, poking home a shot to finally break the longstanding deadlock.

A Souths turnover just outside their circle allowed City to find an open Willott at the back post. Willott made sure of her shot to double the advantage on the hour mark.

Penalty corners hadn’t been a successful endeavour for City throughout the game but that dry spell ended at the hands of Holmes.

Her shot, fired low into the left corner, gave City a highly coveted derby success.

Souths coach Ian North was delighted with his team.

“I don’t think it felt like a 3-0 result. I feel the game deserved a draw,” he said.

“That was a quality game and probably one of the best games I’ve been a part of this year. It was an end-to-end game between two solid Bathurst teams. We just didn’t take our opportunities.

“We were defending really hard when that goal went in. I don’t think we dropped our heads, I just think City were in the zone.”