NEWCASTLE captain Nick Hill believes his team has "the recipe to win it all" at the State Championships.
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The men's open tournament continues at Newcastle International Hockey Centre on Monday with the hosts two results away from reclaiming a title they last won in 2019.
Newcastle qualified for the Hockey NSW semi-finals after winning three of their four preliminary matches over the weekend, only going down 3-2 to Illawarra South Coast on Sunday afternoon.
"We deserve a crack at the final, especially being our home state champs," Hill told the Newcastle Herald.
"I think we want another crack at Illawarra, we let ourselves down a bit at the start but we definitely played a lot better towards the end.
"With our young guys coming through I think we've got the recipe to win it all, we've just got to turn up tomorrow [Monday] and get through the semi."
Newcastle accounted for Sydney South (11-0) and Central Coast (3-0) on Saturday before taking care of Grafton (5-1) on Sunday morning.
Hill says there were "a lot of positives" against pool rivals Illawarra South Coast despite the narrow loss.
"We started pretty slow and were down 2-0 after six minutes," he said.
"We did well to fight back because we were already kind of in the semis so we could have easily thought 'oh well, we're playing tomorrow anyway'.
"We got back to 2-1, they went 3-1 up and then we jagged one late. We had a couple of chances at the end - hit the post and the keeper made a shoulder save.
"We were running over the top of them which is a good sign because it was our second game of the day and their first."
Hill nominated Kurt Walters, Ed Hunt and Matt Magann as strong performers for Newcastle.
The home side now likely meets Metro South West in a bid to reach the 2023 decider.
Lithgow edged out Sydney East for the final spot in the top four after beating Tamworth 2-1 in Sunday's last round.
Elsewhere in the women's State Championships being held at Macarthur Hockey Complex, Newcastle coach Scott New was resigned to falling short of the semis despite having one fixture remaining against Orange on Sunday night.
Newcastle beat Bathurst 3-1 on Sunday afternoon following losses to Goulburn (2-0) and Sydney South (3-2) on Saturday.
Semis at both carnivals are scheduled for 10:30am. Finals follow at 2:15pm.
Meanwhile, the Kookaburras inflicted an embarrassing 7-2 Pro League defeat on hosts the Netherlands on Saturday (AEST).
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