BATHURST have been forced to do plenty of shuffling to their lineup ahead of this Sunday's Rod Hartas Trophy contest away to Blue Mountains, but they'll still be confident of keeping their perfect start to the competition intact.
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The game at Peter Carroll Turf as a grand final rematch, and given the way that previous meeting went the champion Bathurst squad will be giving the hosts plenty of respect.
Bathurst were pushed all the way in that 46 run success and suffered a big top order scare.
They will be hoping this Sunday's meeting will be a more comfortable experience, and it will be attempted with a very different looking side from the one that beat Orange handily in the opening round.
Half of the Bathurst team has rotated out as Blake Kreuzberger, Wayne Sellers, Liam Cain, Tyler Horton, Pat Hill, Ricky Webb and Matt Fearnley all come into the squad.
Sam Macpherson's promotion to Bathurst's Western Zone Premier League side renders him illegible for the remainder of the Rod Hartas Season.
Last round's centurion Ben Cant is unavailable, as is Kurt Toole.
Brad Rayner, Derryn Clayton, Dave Cant and Tom Lynch are also the first round players who are out from the team.
Bathurst skipper Andrew Brown has confidence in Bathurst to see off any opponents regardless of the team's composition.
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"We have a few players out and a couple of players who have moved up to the first team so they can play in this anymore," he said.
"Blue Mountains have been a reasonably strong team in the Rod Hartas over the last couple of years. It should be a pretty good game, and hopefully a bit more competitive than the one we had against Orange.
"Orange do have a pretty young team there but we bowled really well in that game.
"With the team we have for this game I'm sure they'll do the job again."
Bathurst will look to channel the cricket that they produced against Orange.
Justin Stephenson and Hugh Parsons had five wickets between them in that first game and they'll be back looking for more.
The duo were also great in last season's grand final success against the Blue Mountains at the Sportsground, producing economical spells to help restrict their opponents to 95 in pursuit of 141.
Brown led by example against Orange as he formed a 138 run partnership with Ben Cant, scoring 38 runs of his own.
This will be the first game of the season for the Blue Mountains after their opening round match against Mudgee was rained out.
The other game in this Rod Hartas round sees Gulgong playing host to Molong at Victoria Park.
Both games get underway from 10am.
BATHURST: Dave Sellers, Hamish Siegert, Blake Kreuzberger, Justin Stephenson, Hugh Parsons, Wayne Sellers, Andrew Brown (c), Liam Cain, Tyler Horton, Pat Hill, Ricky Webb, Matt Fearnley
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