The game was played at Lithgow with both side's observing a minutes silence in respect of Lithgow hockey personality and long time stalwart Neil Gambrill with Ziggies also wearing black arm bands.

Bathurst Souths scraped home winning 4-3, and it will be a game that Ziggies will look back as one that got away.

They dominated the first half with goals to Chris Williams and Zac Sharp, but Souths showed how dangerous they can be when they also scored two goals through Dylan Smith and Bryce Hitchcock in the rare times that they ventured in Ziggies' territory with the score standing at 2-all at the break.

In the second half, the pendulum started to swing towards Souths courtesy of a couple of 'friendly' calls with Ziggies having three players being yellow carded in the second half.

With players off, the defence of Ziggies found it difficult to hold out Souths with Dylan Smith scoring his second goal followed by one to Jono Cole.

Ziggies came back strongly and were a continual threat on the ball, refusing to put their heads down despite feeling a little hard done by.

They were rewarded with a goal to Chris Bennett with seven minutes to go.

Souths had to step up their defence to hold out a fast finishing Zig Zag side to record a 4-3 win.

Ziggies missed the services of goalie Luke Thurtell who is regarded as one of the best in the competition, but in the end they had no excuses knowing that they had enough possession and played well enough to win the game and win it well.

Best for Zig Zag were Chris Bennett, Joe Radburn and Michael Gant.

Others to stand out were Luke Sheppeard, Zac Sharp and Chris Williams.

Coach Mark Sheppeard has his side playing a good open brand of hockey and have enough fire power to put it up to any of the top sides.

Zig Zag face another tough test on the weekend when they are at home to competition leaders Bathurst St Pats starting at 2.40pm.