THEY went undefeated through the Western Youth League, they went unconquered at the Forbes carnival, and now the Bathurst District under 14s will do their best to extend that streak at the Country Cup.
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Bathurst's Proctor Park will play host to this year's under 14 boys Country Cup, an event which will see six teams doing battle over two days.
The Roy Thomas coached Bathurst outfit booked their spot thanks to being crowned the Western Youth League champions in June ahead of Dubbo, Mudgee and Orange. They scored 21 goals across their six games and conceded just four.
"They had a good Western Youth League, we went through undefeated, and a couple of weeks ago we went to Forbes and won their carnival," Thomas said.
"We played South West Slopes, Lachlan, Wagga, Orange CYMS and Mudgee. We had a draw and three wins and then in the final we got up on a penalty shoot-out, so the boys were pretty excited about that.
"They've had a good season so far, but Country Cup will be a big step up in standard I'm expecting."
The annual Country Cup involves district teams from the Western, Southern and Riverina branches and unlike seasons past, this year won't just see the champions of those areas involved.
Riverina will be represented by Griffith, both Eurobodalla and Southern Tablelands will fly the Southern flag while Bathurst, Lithgow and Dubbo will look to stake Western's claim.
"They've changed the format over the last couple of years, they ask anyone who wants to play in it rather than having champions against champions," Thomas explained.
"It means they get more games which is good, and they get to play teams they haven't played before, which is nice."
Thomas' side are excited to be playing on their home fields at Proctor Park, training on Thursday night to help prepare.
They'll open their campaign at 10am Friday against Dubbo, later that afternoon at 2pm take on Eurobodalla then have an evening showdown with Southern Tablelands (5.30pm). On Saturday they'll meet Griffith (8.30am) and Liithgow (11.50am).
The top two sides after the round games qualify for the final to be played at 3.15pm on Saturday.
"I've told them to enjoy it because it's their last opportunity this year I'd say to play at this sort of standard," Thomas said.
"This is a great opportunity to play those teams from Southern and Riverina, it will be a good challenge as they always have good teams from down there.
"We're not going out saying we're going to win this, but being Western champions we want to give a good account of ourselves, especially at home."
BATHURST UNDER 14s: GK Connor Brown, 2 Landes Mokaraka, 3 Levi Bell, 4 Zac Johns (c), 5 Austin Comerford, 6 Jacobi Callan-Mckechnie, 7 Noah Soetens, 8 Owen Porter, 9 Logan Constable, 10 Noah Maskill-Dowton, 11 Hugh Thomas, 12 Jack Mashman, 13 Rufus Fox-Allan, 14 Archie Carah, 15 Harry Cooper, 16 Jaiden Muldoon.
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