UNDEFEATED division three champions, just two goals conceded across three days - the Bathurst Buccaneers certainly made an impact in their return to the Hockey NSW Open Men's Field State Championships.
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The long weekend tournament in Tamworth marked the first time Bathurst had fielded an open men's side at state in six years.
Though that meant Bathurst was placed in division three, the mission was to earn promotion and the Buccaneers delivered in style.
They beat hosts Tamworth 3-1 in Monday's final, Lachie Howard striking first off a penalty corner play before Jaden Ekert's second half double from counter-attacking raids sealed the gold medal.
"They came out firing with a big crowd behind them, but we got the victory," Bathurst captain Shane Conroy said.
"We never looked like losing it, we probably didn't put all our chances away which kept them in the game, but that's grand finals, they can be a bit of a scrap, a bit of a dog fight.
"We scored first then they got to one-all at half-time, but then in the third quarter they were a player short, they got a yellow and we went bang, bang.
"One of our boys had a yellow after that and we played with 10 for 10 minutes and defended our butts off and just grinded away."
That win over Tamworth in the decider iced a dominant run from the Buccaneers.
On Saturday the side beat Northern Inland 5-0 and Tamworth 4-0, following that up on Sunday with a 5-1 victory over Manning Valley and 7-0 triumph against Northern Inland.
That meant Bathurst finished the round games on top of the ladder and were drawn to meet Northern Inland in the semi-final. That game did not go ahead, the Buccaneers winning via forfeit.
Conroy said the results were a fair indication of how Bathurst performed and means the squad is already excited to have a shot in division two in 2023.
"We showed our class and that we probably shouldn't have been in div three, but anyway, that's the way it works, we can now have a crack at div two next year. I think we'll definitely be competitive in div two going by what we did this weekend," he said.
"It was a good experience for those younger guys to play with the likes of Brent Naylor who came back and Jaden, they had a ball and I think they'll definitely be back next year because they all loved it."
Conroy praised the efforts of goalkeeper Taylor Newton and the Bathurst defence - the only goals they conceded having come from penalty corners.
Their efforts complimented what the Buccaneers did in attack.
"Our goal was to get the final and we did that, so anything on top of that was a bonus. To only concede two goals all tournament and score 24 was outstanding," he said.
"He [Newton] was busy enough and against Manning Valley he saved a stroke and other than that he played really well, it was only two penalty corner drag flicks that went in, there were no field goals against us.
"We did click in attack too, I think that Pat's connection probably came through on occasions through the middle and up front."
BATHURST: Shane Conroy, Blake Davis, Riley Hanrahan, Lachlan Howard, Brandon Lloyd, Taylor Newton, Fletcher Norris, Kyle Reardon, Andre Rossitt, Cody Sherman, Ben Watson, Brent Naylor, Jaden Ekert, Tyler Willott, Kallum Jenkins. Coach: Niel Howard.
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