Bathurst will fancy their chances of success in the weekend's action, which also features Orange and Dubbo, given that they've managed to retain the bulk of last season's under 18s team.

Former captain Ethan Muller has graduated out of the age group but an impressive core group of Hamish Siegert, Cooper Brien, Fletcher Norris, Tom Lynch, Tom Judge, Angus Parsons and Jacob Ryan are all back for another go.

That group have all had the chance to test themselves at Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket level and will look to bring that senior experience into the representative carnival.

Alex Kinghorne, Zane Newham, Harry Noonan and Flynn Taylor were the new names for the Bathurst 18s, and the addition of Blake Kreuzberger gives the squad more batting firepower.

Everyone will be looking impress across the weekend's two games at Victoria Park as Western representative places go on the line.

Bathurst bested the Chairman's XI in the only game of the 2020-21 colts carnival after the opening day's game against Orange was washed out.

Coach Clint Bryant said that it's nice to be able to call on plenty of strong support in the face of several absentees this weekend.

"We have a couple of guys away with other commitments. Tom Siede, our spinner, is away. Not having Justin Stephenson might hurt a little bit but that does give other guys the chance to come in and play," he said.

"We have Blake Kreuzberger coming in, which is handy because that gives us a second genuine opening batsman now."

Bathurst will have their eye on a couple of key Chairman's players when they meet this Saturday.

"The Chairman's side have got a couple of cricketers that we know already, whereas the rest we're not seeing a lot of the time because they're not playing at that high of a level regularly," Bryant said.

"Obviously Connor Whale is playing in Bathurst now, so we know what he's got, and I think their strength is going to be in the batting with Harry Bayliss and Mikey McNamara, who's playing in Canberra now.

"We've got the main core of our group - six to seven of them - who have played together since they were around 10. We know our strengths and we know our weaknesses.

"I think that runs will be the key. Our top four have all been putting them on lately so hopefully they can keep that going."

Dubbo plays Orange on Saturday, with the two winners to face each other's in Sunday's final, while the losers play-off for third.

Games get underway on both days from 10am.

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