ONE of the Bathurst Panthers' longest-serving senior players will take the reins of next year's Group 10 first division team.
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Trent Hotham has been a staple of Panthers' premier league and first division sides ever since he came out of juniors 13 years ago but now he's ready to take on a new challenge.
Hotham will step up to coach the Panthers first division squad, a team who have arguably been one of Group 10's most consistently strong outfits over the past decade.
The team have claimed four titles in that time and have enjoyed a long run of finals football, but they came up one win short of another premiership in this year's decider against the Lithgow Workies.
Now Hotham's looking to go one step better as coach, but he almost didn't make the call to apply for the position.
Like a general with his finger hovering over the missile button, ready to launch, Hotham waited until the moment was ready to strike.
"I only applied a couple of days before the cut off but I'd been thinking about doing it for a while," he said.
"We made the grand final this year and I'd say most of the blokes from that team will stay around and give it another go.
"We have some great juniors coming up from 18s. It should be a good mix of older and younger blokes."
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Those junior stocks at the Panthers look strong on paper. The 18s won the title in 2017 and came within a win of defending that crown this season.
Like many members of the first division team they're about to join, those former under 18s will be itching to get on the right side of a grand final scoreboard.
Hotham believes if the positive culture around the club continues then there's every chance Panthers will feature in finals again.
"It's exciting. I feel like we should be up there again this year," Hotham said.
"There's a lot of those juniors who will also be trying to push on to the first grade team as well. First divsion will hopefully be a stepping stone towards first grade for a few of them.
"Our whole club's been really close knit and everyone's on the same page."
Panthers now have a pair of halfbacks coaching their two senior men's teams.