COVID ruined any chance of that in the Group 10 2020 and 2021 season, but now Mortimer will have his chance to appear in the Peter McDonald Premiership finals and he's raring to go.

"I've been waiting three years for this," he said.

"It's always exciting, especially those elimination finals, you've got to put it all out there. You're playing quality teams, there's no guarantees at all and you don't want to come off thinking I should've done that or I didn't give it my all out there. Whatever happens happens but I'm confident if we put it together on the day we'll hopefully come away with a win."

Mortimer was unfortunately unavailable last weekend for CYMS' 36-14 loss to Dubbo CYMS and will be determined to see his side return to form after two losses in a row.

"There's a few sore bodies from Sunday but it's all on the line," he said.

What lies ahead for his side is a knockout semi-final against Parkes Spacemen at Wade Park.

And when Mortimer re-signed with CYMS for 2022 his goal was simple.

"Anything short of a premiership is a failure," he said back in 2021.

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CYMS will have to go the hard route if they are to achieve that but early season form suggests they're capable.

Their opponents, Parkes Spacemen, will be on the road again after a 12-11 victory over Bathurst St Pat's last weekend at Jack Arrow Oval.

Last time CYMS and Parkes met at Wade Park, the two sides fought out an incredibly close battle with the home team holding on for a 32-20 victory.

The headline in that fixture came from the clash of the halfbacks with Parkes' Chad Porter embarking on a personal battle with Mortimer and the CYMS captain-coach would welcome the challenge again.

"I do (thrive off that), he's a very good player and it probably brought the best out of both of us, so hopefully that happens again on the weekend," he said.

"Parkes throw the footy a lot so we've got to be right on with our defence - you can't concede 30 points again and expect to win. We have to tighten up our defence and play our style of footy, it'll be a tough one but we're really looking forward to it."

Action at Wade Park will kick off with Macquarie Raiders and Parkes Spacemen battling at 11am in League Tag before under 18s and reserve grade. First grade will kick off at 2:40pm.

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