“I think half the district side is in their side, so they should be favourites the whole thing I think,” he said.

And Coughlan is bang on right.

Six of St Pat’s players – Nic Broes, Ben Mitchell, Adam Ryan, Connor Slattery, Tanvir Singh and Matt Fearnley – featured in Bathurst’s 12 man squad that went down to Dubbo by four runs on October 14 in Western Zone Cricket.

Coughlan is aware of St Pat’s batting strength and wants to make sure Redbacks do what they can to restrict their opposition. 

“We’ll have to bowl well. St Pat’s strength is their batting, so if we can restrict them to as little runs as we can, I’m going to back our boys to chase down whatever St Pat’s post,” he said.

“If we can restrict them, that’s going to be the way we win the game.”

But Redbacks are handy with the bat as well, with Northern Irish import Aditya Adey hitting 73 runs in his debut match and junior Cohen Schubert scoring 62 in the opening round three-wicket win over City Colts. 

The team will remained unchanged from the win over City Colts, a win that Coughlan said was unexpected. 

“Personally, I thought we could get the win if we played our best and we probably only played at 80 per cent, because our bowling wasn’t on. We let them get away earlier,” he said.

“But there was a lot of composure in that game, in the last 20 overs. That’s what got us the win. 

“I don’t think many people have given us a chance of winning this season, after losing guys like Matt Willis, Greg Adam, John Rudge and Trent Hemsworth,” he said.

“It’s a pretty big list of quality players we’ve lost. But we’ve got young guys in the system like Cohen Schubert, Rory Daburger, Mark Day and Oliver Simpson for the past four to five years now. 

“It’s now there chance to step up and they’ve taken it with both hands and they’re running with it.” 

Saturday’s game will be played at the Bathurst Sportsground, starting at 1.30pm.