THEY may not have come away with the win, but what Bathurst City coach Jill Long saw from her side in Saturday's 1-0 women's Premier League Hockey loss to Lithgow Panthers gave her faith.
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The way her relatively-new side is coming together gives her the faith City can feature in this season's finals.
"I'm actually really pleased with the way the girls played together because they haven't played much together," she said.
"They're a new side, we've got four new players and they take up central positions.
"I'm actually really proud of them and I think if we make the semis watch out."
The first quarter of the match in Lithgow saw Panthers control possession but despite many opportunities, they could not breach City's defence.
However, three minutes into the second quarter Panthers nabbed what would prove to be the match winner as Clare Bosman hit the target from a penalty corner.
City pressed hard to find an equaliser - pressure that saw Panthers at times lose their shape - but in the end the hosts held on to win 1-0.
"We had plenty of opportunities out there and they [Bathurst] had two or three against us, we had about eight or nine," Panthers coach David Marshall said.
"We played well in that first half but then we just lost our structure, similar to last week. We sort of just panicked and we didn't need to.
"Each team played well and we'll take the 1-0 win today."
Stand out players according to Marshall were Amelia Leard up front and Cheryn Van Veen in the backs.
"We were a bit scrambled today but I thought Amelia Leard played well for us today, she hurt her hamstring and then came back on," he said.
"Cheryn Van Veen was a stand out player from seeing how she controlled the back line, without her there today we would have struggled."
Marshall said every win takes on added importance given the shorter season and while his side was undefeated, there's still work to do.
"You try to win every game possible to get a chance at making that top two come semi-final time," he said.
"We know what we have to work on and we're doing our best to make sure we are coming out here each week and doing it."
Next weekend Panthers take on St Pat's in which Marshall said would be a "real test".
"They always give us a tough game each year so they will give us a good opportunity to let us know where we are at," he said.
Long said stand out players for City were Emily Thompson, Ruby Thompson and Tameka Potter.