Bathurst Panthers forced to make changes for Peter McDonald Premiership game against Lithgow Workies

As the team prepare to travel and face Lithgow Workies this Saturday they'll take a record of six wins and six losses with them to Tony Luchetti while also having a point differential of zero.

Panthers will have a great chance of finally tipping that point differential into positive territory - especially if they repeat the football from last round's 66-6 win over Orange CYMS - but will be trying to do so with a different looking lineup.

With both Doug Hewitt (knee injury) and Joey Bugg (work) not available for this weekend's game it's brought Blake Lawson back into the halves alongside Nick Tilburg.

McCoy White comes off the bench to take Lawson's previous starting spot in the second row.

While it's never ideal to be shuffling things around in the lead up to finals Panthers player-coach Jake Betts said there's plenty of confidence in any lineup that his side puts on the park.

"We're have to have Lawso there. He'll kind of play like another back rower and run some stuff through the halves. Buggy couldn't get work off and Dougy is still monitoring his knee," he said.

"It's been a bit of a weird season so far for us. I look back at the two games against Hawks where I think things have come back to bite us, especially when we played them at home, but that's just the way it is.

"The last two games we've been able to play a bit more consistently. Hopefully we can do that again this week."

Last round's results officially secured the Panthers' return to the PMP finals but there's still a lot for them to play for.

A small possibility remains for the team to finish inside the top two if they win against Workies and the Mudgee Dragons across their last pair of games and other results go their way.

That's a huge motivator for Betts and his side.

They'll be trying to bring down Workies for the second time this season after scoring a close 24-22 win over them in May at Carrington Park.

"Lithgow gave us a big scare when we played them at home so we're very wary of them," Betts said.

"They've got some pretty good forwards and some agile backs who can be dangerous and score from anywhere on the field, and any time you go down to Lithgow it's always tough."

Kick-off is Saturday 3.30pm.

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