So when it comes time for a champion side to defend their crown, the pressure is certainly on.

It’s suffocating. 

Teams crumble under the weight of that expectation.

So how could a side that barely made the finals in 2018 before catching fire throughout the Group 10 post season, and then captured the unlikeliest of unlikely premierships, possibly be able to handle that sort of pressure?

Doug Hewitt – that’s how.

The Bathurst Panthers captain-coach is the youngest mentor in Group 10 headed in 2019 but won’t change anything in his approach to the new season.

Not when his 2018 philosophy worked so well.

Hewitt and Panthers’ grand final hero Willie Wright caught up with the new Get ‘Em Onside Podcast during the pre-season and both indicated although most punters across the region had written the men in black off, there was no shortage of belief in the Bathurst camp.

“At the start of the year, showing up to training we straight away had it put on us that we were tipped to come second last,” Hewitt said in the podcast’s first episode, which will air on Sunday, January 27.

“There was a market put up at the Group 10 day at the (Bathurst) trots and I think we were second-last on the betting there, and someone even tried to have $50 on us not to win a game all year.

“Being told about that, it makes you want to put it to them.”

Things didn’t start well, though, conceding five-unanswered, converted tries to a rampaging Hawks side in round one to trail the two blues 30-0 at the break.

Suddenly punters across Group 10 were counting their cash.

But, as Hewitt will repeatedly say, his Panthers side wasn’t about to lay down. They stuck it to Hawks.

The end result was 30-all and from that moment on Hewitt knew his side was on to something special.

And so, they stuck it to sides on a weekly basis.

It didn’t always go to plan - Panthers very nearly dropped a game to wooden-spooners Blayney, which is incredible to fathom for a side that went on to win the comp - but by and large it worked for Hewitt.

The proof is in the pudding, or in this case the premiership trophy sitting in the club’s trophy cabinet heading into 2019.

So, when heading into the finals as rank outsiders from the out-set, what was Hewitt’s message?

“I've said it before to the boys: don’t be happy just to be there, go out there and bloody stick it to every team we play,” he said.

From the moment Wright iced that remarkable sideline conversion – a kick the veteran pivot says he plays over and over to his kids - to trump the Magpies 12-10 at Cowra on the final Sunday of the 2018 season, Panthers’ went from the hunters to the hunted.

Suddenly, from no expectation to immense pressure. It now belongs to Panthers.

Not that Hewitt cares.

The no nonsense half will be guiding his side in the same manner he did last winter because, simply, he expects Panthers to be written off again.

If it’s possible to underestimate a champion side, that is.

“We had that title of being underdogs the whole way through last year … I don’t know if people are expecting a lot from us again this year, but we’ll take every game as it comes,” Hewitt added.

The Get ‘Em Onside Podcast will air each Sunday night in the lead-up to both the Group 10 and Group 11 season kicks-offs, with the first episodes, featuring respective premiers Bathurst Panthers and Forbes Magpies released on January 27.