TONIGHT’S Kookaburra Cup Grand Final will be all about redemption for its two combatants, as both teams endured Grand Final heartbreak last season.
St. Mary’s-Tyntynder will be out to make amends for their loss to RSL in last year’s Kookaburra Cup decider, when the Saints were bowled out for just 78. Nyah District know the pain of Grand Final defeat all too well themselves, having lost last season’s A Grade Grand Final to Woorinen by an agonising seven runs.
While both clubs will be desperate to win, for the Saints, they will be out to create history, as they search for the second one-day title in their club’s history. That win came seven years ago and featured three players – Corey Daniels, Jared Halligan and Austin McKerrow – who will once again pull on the red, white and black tonight.
When speaking with The Guardian this week, St. Mary’s-Tyntynder co-captain Austin McKerrow outlined his club’s emotions ahead of the big game.
“It’s pretty exciting, we only just scrapped in and beat Woorinen to the finish line by 0.1 percent, but obviously we’re pretty happy to be in another grand final and try to rectify last year’s result,” McKerrow said.
For Demons captain Ben Shadbolt, it was a similar sentiment ahead of tonight’s clash.
“Last year’s Grand Final will no doubt be a bit of a motivating factor – the side we have is very similar to the one we had that day, minus Joel Walsh, but the young blokes have come in keener than ever and they’ve really stepped up and performed,” Shadbolt said.
“At the start of the year, we were written off and expected to finish outside the top four and to finish on top of the ladder, at least in the one-day competition, is a super effort, I feel.”
With their round three one-day fixture cancelled due to the COVID outbreak in early January, the only meeting between the two clubs was in the T20 competition prior to Christmas – with St. Mary’s recording a comfortable nine-wicket win.
While the Saints will go into the match with a strong all-round game, McKerrow believes his team will have one distinct advantage.
“We’ve got a lot of batting depth – and I think that showed a couple of weekends ago when we had most of our batsmen out of the team and we still got the win against RSL, which helped us scrape into this final,” McKerrow said.
“I think our batting is what will potentially win it for us – if ‘Coddo’ (Bailey Codling) and ‘Smizz’ (Riley Daniels) do their job at the top of the order like they have been, that’ll go a long way to setting the game up for us.”
Shadbolt agreed that St. Mary’s-Tyntynder’s batting was a big advantage, but was hoping that his team’s strength would balance the ledger come game time.
“Our bowling’s kept us in all the games that we’ve won,” Shadbolt said.
“We’ve struggled at times to put runs on the board, so our bowling is our strength, which is lucky because their batting is definitely their strong suit I believe.
“It’s going to be a pretty good match up in that regard – if we win it’ll be because we’ve bowled exceptionally well.”
