THEY were a team with what coach Anthony Nicol described as having 'potential galore', but it is potential the under 16 Bathurst Panthers league tag side never really got the chance to fulfil.
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After a regular Group 10 Junior Rugby League league tag season that was interrupted by wash-outs, Panthers weren't at their best in their qualifying final.
The motivation to make amends was high, but before Nicol's side got the chance to do so the COVID-19 lockdown of the region forced officials to abandon the remainder of the season.
"It was a not-so-great game for us in the semi, we didn't quite play to how we could have and I think we let the scoreline get in our heads a bit and we dropped off," Nicol admitted.
"But we had had our two trainings sessions before lockdown hit and everything was looking quite good, so yeah, it was a bit of a bummer they didn't get to play.
"It was a season where we were just building and building, but it guess it felt like we didn't have the time or opportunity to get to our potential.
"We had a team that had potential galore ... the potential was limitless but those combinations just weren't quite there, I think we needed a bit longer season, not so many missed games."
As well as having to deal with three of their last four regular season games not going ahead, Nicol's Panthers were often below full strength when they did play.
With a number of Panthers players also involved with other sporting codes, a full squad was not always available each Sunday.
"We had an interrupted season in that we had a lot of girls playing different sports - girls playing netball, girls playing AFL, girls playing rugby union. So we struggled having the same team on the field every week," he said.
"Given that, we actually had a really good season, we only had the two [regular season] losses and they were games we were very much in and could've won.
"I think we were actually rather unlucky to finish third [in the minor premiership], we ended up two points behind second which was Mudgee but we actually had two washed-out games and then there was the lockdown game, so we ended up with three draws which were probable games we would have won."
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