THERE'S a Central West flavour to this year's Hockey NSW women's country side and three Bathurst players have contributed to that.
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Bathurst City's Kelly Baker and Madison Tattersall along with St Pat's player Sarah Watterson are among the seven Central West players selected in the state side.
Tattersall and Watterson return to wear the sky blue after doing so last year while Baker is back in the NSW squad after making her debut in 2015.
The Bathurst trio will take on the Australian Country Championships over August 3 to 11 in Shepparton, Victoria.
Selections were made based on performances at the Hockey NSW Open Field State Championships.
Orange has a trio of their own in the side of Millah Allcorn, Courtney Hogan and Madison Smith while Lithgow player Tamika Bostock also made the team.
Bathurst men have missed out on a place in their country squad but the Central West theme continues strongly into the male squad.
Lithgow have four players in the team (Michael Dillon, Logan Hunter, Ben Kelly, Nick Milne) while Wanderers' Taylor Dolbel and Bailey Ferguson made the cut.
Ferguson's attitude towards representative hockey was tarnished a few years ago after a non-selection and he's not too proud to admit that either.
"There was a point a few years ago when I didn't get selected in a side and, yeah, it left me a bit discouraged. I sort of just thought 'I don't want to play anymore'," Ferguson said, candidly.
"So this will be the first time I'll play a higher level than Orange in about three or four years.
"I wasn't really thinking about it to be honest. I've changed clubs in town from Confederates to CYMS so I can play with a few more of my mates and I'm really just gone back to enjoying my hockey.
"I'm really looking forward to this one now, it'll be my first time playing for NSW Country opens as well which is good, it'll be good. I'll need to do some training between now and then though, I'm pretty unfit."
Ferguson went on to heap praise on Orange's division two championship-winning side, reiterating he's not shocked at all to see CYMS' Smith and Hogan and Confederates' Allcorn called-up to the next level.
Particularly considering they're all incumbents.
Bathurst's division three women's side were champions on their home turf while the division one side performed extremely well to come up just short of a semi-finals appearance - unfortunate to miss out after losing a very winnable game to fog.