Newcastle Olympic coach Paul DeVitis will have the bonus of dynamic winger Georgia Little for one more outing when they host front-runners Broadmeadow in NPLW Northern NSW on Wednesday night after their first loss in two-and-a-half months.
Olympic slipped from third to fourth place when they were outgunned 3-2 by the competition's other pace-setters Warners Bay at Darling Street Oval on Sunday. The result ended a seven-game winning run for the hosts.
But DeVitis embraced the quick turnaround to face Magic, who are in a premiership race with Warners Bay. The league's top two sides both have 40 points with five games each to play.
The Panthers play sixth-placed Adamstown (14) at John Street Oval on Wednesday night in a catch-up match of their own before hosting Magic in round 18 on Sunday.
"To be 3-0 down against the top team, a lot of teams this year would've lost by a very big margin," DeVitis said.
"We talked at half-time about that not happening to us and showing resilience and giving it everything we had.
"At the end of the game everyone was pretty shattered not to get a point but they were pretty optimistic looking forward to Magic straight away because they knew how well we played and how we dominated large parts of the game against Warners Bay."
Little is headed to the United States to take up a college football scholarship and originally the Warners Bay game was going to be her last. But a visa delay has meant she can now play against Magic before leaving on Thursday.
Magic, who showed plenty of their own composure and resilience in coming from 2-0 down to beat fifth-placed Maitland (22 points) 3-2 last weekend, are likely to have striker Chelsea Lucas back from a knee injury.
Fullback Jannali Hunter has been sidelined since June 25 with a broken ankle but is more likely to return against Warners Bay.
Panthers coach Craig Atkins was pleased with how his side held off a fast-finishing Olympic after leading 3-0 at the break.
"It's a big week,"Atkins said. "I felt the one [against Olympic] was really important, to get the three points. The girls will be much better off for that high-intense game as well.
"We haven't played a game of intensity like that for a few weeks."
Both games kick off at 8pm.
