In fact coach Mal Willott is backing them to step up in the next fortnight and see City end a four-year semi-final drought.

Willott's faith in his side stems from the brand of hockey it produced in Saturday's 3-1 loss to Souths.

Though Souths led from the second minute of the match until the final whistle, City continued to pressure all the way.

City earned six penalty corners to Souths' two and in the third quarter spent plenty of time attacking deep inside two blues' territory.

In defence, even though losing captain Erin Cobcroft in the first quarter, the likes of Sarah McCusker and Kelsey Webb made a string of strong tackles.

"We're getting the results in the circle, we're getting the shorts, we're just not scoring off those shorts," Willott said.

"It will come, like we could go and play Lithgow next week and beat them, every game is different, every team in this comp is just as good as every other team on their day.

"They [Souths] are second now on the ladder and we matched it with them, we just can't quite score.

"But I'm still backing them. Definitely."

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All three goals that City conceded came from breakaways and Souths' finishing touches made them hard to defend.

Jess Watterson scored Souths' opener off a brilliant deflection, while goal two came from a quick counter attack after a Bathurst City penalty corner.

"How do you stop one when we have a short? And that other deflection, no-one is going to stop that," Willott said.

Though those goals did hurt City, the coach was delighted to see how his players responded. Rather than dropping off, they upped their intensity.

That's the sort of thing teams need to do if they want to play finals hockey.

"The tempo of the game lifted and we lifted to match them. Which is what I like," Willott said.

"The first quarter at the end we lifted to match them and we had more ball in the second quarter. We don't give up.

"We had the last shot, every game we've had the last shot. They're young kids but their heads never go down, they keep going."

Keep going is exactly what City needs to do over the final fortnight of the regular season.

It's currently two points outside the top four with games against competition leaders Lithgow Panthers and currently third placed St Pat's to come.

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