IN the wake of news that strike player and 2014 captain Jess Hotham could be out for a majority of this year’s women’s Premier League Hockey competition, Bathurst City will be looking for more positive news to come in today’s season opener against the Lithgow Panthers.

Hotham’s back injury takes a big offensive threat out of City’s line-up – not the news they wanted to hear as they get set for today’s grand final rematch in Lithgow.

The Panthers won last year’s grand final at the Cooke Hockey Complex 4-2, Hotham amongst the scorers in the defeated City outfit. 

But one thing that will help City’s confidence is the knowledge that they were the only team to overcome the Panthers last season and that 2-0 win in the major semi-final came on Lithgow’s home turf.

City already have a small taste of what the defending premiers will offer this year, having played out a scoreless draw in a trial match.

It was a chance for new City player-coach Lisa Quinn to get back into rhythm after a year away from the field to look after her newborn child.

Quinn, who played a handful of matches for the Bathurst club in 2013, said Panthers look as solid as ever.

“It will all depend on how many changes that they’ve had. We played them in a pre-season trial. When we played them it was still the same style that I remembered. They definitely will not be weak,” she said.

“We would have played that around two weeks ago and it ended in a nil-all draw. I heard they were missing some key players there, but in saying that, we were as well.

“I think the Panthers are a very fast, attacking team and we have to make sure that we’re equally quick.”

While the coach hasn’t had a long time to get to know her new team, she has noticed some great changes among the familiar faces.

“I’m personally still a bit rusty, having had the year off. Those girls who were 15 or so back when I was playing here before have now developed into great under 18s representative players,” Quinn said.

“I’m impressed immensely with the changes I’ve seen. It’s definitely a different team to the one back then, but it’s a better one.”

As for the timing of the game against Panthers, most of the City players are more than happy to have the grand final rematch early on.

“I think most of us are thrilled to have it first up in Lithgow. It means that we get it out of the way. In fact we get both our matches against Lithgow within the first half of the season with the way the draw’s worked out,” senior player Casey Bayliss said.

“Last time we played them at the end of the season and we were tired from almost 20 rounds of hockey.”