Lithgow Storm's Under 16's team will go straight through to the grand final after beating Orange CYMS 18-14 at Lithgow.
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The Storm team, the last remaining Lithgow team in the finals series, delighted the home crowd on Saturday afternoon, August 24.
Lithgow hosted a full day of finals at Tony Luchetti Showground, with major and minor semi-finals being played.
It has been a dream season for the Lithgow Under 16's team, which has been undefeated throughout the season.
Coach Ben Lane said the boys' ability to play as a team and their overall fitness gave them the edge over CYMS.
"I thought it was a good game of footy," he said.
"It was pretty tough with the wind, obviously, but it was good to have it in the second half. I think that helped us get home a bit."
The game did not get off to an ideal start, with the Storm's first try attempt disallowed because of a forward pass. CYMS went into half-time with a 6-0 lead.
However, the Storm team fought back early after the break to even things up before taking control of the game.
"I thought they all played pretty well," Lane said of his team.
"There were a couple of standouts. I thought our fullback was really good, he played really well at the back, and both of front-rowers led them well up the middle."
However, coach Ben Lane was cautious about celebrating too early. In 2018, the Storm Under 16's team was undefeated throughout the season but went down in the grand final against CYMS.
"We've been here before so we won't get too far ahead of ourselves," he said.
"I'm pretty sure CYMS are a good quality side and they've got some good players. They'll come back."
He predicted it would be CYMS they would be up against in two week's time in the grand final.
Bathurst Panthers will play CYMS for the final grand final spot after getting up against Bloomfield at Lithgow on Saturday.
Despite a week off, Lane said it would be business as usual for the Under 16's team.
"We'll stick with what's worked for us," he said.
"We've only played one game in three weeks but we've worked pretty hard all year so I'm pretty confident their fitness will be pretty right."
LITHGOW STORM 18 (Donovan Peters 2, Tyler West 1, goals Cooper Egan 3) def ORANGE CYMS 12 (Connor Davis, Liam Wilson, goals Liam Wilson 2).
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