THREE weeks ago, St Mary’s Tyntynder defeated Wandella by 109 runs in the Kookaburra Cup final.
It was the Bombers’ third loss in a row across all competitions and left their season on a knife’s edge.
But they’ve since turned it around, winning three on the trot to sit well entrenched in the top four.
On Saturday, with home-ground advantage and confidence brimming, they find themselves back where they started – facing a rampaging Saints side who just smashed their closest rivals, Nyah District, by 10 wickets.
Bombers skipper Gregory Dickson told The Guardian the Cup final was the catalyst for his side’s resurgence and the fresh Saints challenge comes at the perfect time.
“It was a pretty low point for us – we realised we were a fair way off the mark – it was quite embarrassing being skittled for 90-odd on a good deck,” he said.
“Everyone’s knuckled down since then, and you can see with our scores in the past couple of weeks that no matter what position we’re in, we can still make a competitive score.
“We probably need to know where we are at because we’ll need to face St Mary’s or Nyah in the first final, who are the benchmark, so this game is huge for us.”
The Saints’ destructive power with the bat is well known, but they’ll come up against a bowling attack including Ryan Barnes, who took 8/27 last week, Bohden McKnight and Ethan McKnight.
However, Dickson was under no illusions.
“You always want to get early wickets because they’ve got killers the whole way through their order,” he said.
“Look at Robin (Sebastian) in the Kookaburra Cup final, he came in at 11 and made a score, so you need to bowl them out, which is a pretty tough gig.”
While Barnes has been a star for the Bombers over numerous seasons, Dickson lauded the improvement of Ethan McKnight, who added another dimension to his attack through the tricky middle overs of an innings.
“Last year was his first year in A Grade cricket and he’s been training with Eaglehawk in Bendigo, so he’s really consolidated his knowledge and we’ve seen it in his bowling,” Dickson said.
Unlike three weeks ago, the Bombers were no longer relying on Dickson to score all the runs, with youngsters Bohden McKnight and Patrick Oliver steeping up, along with lower-order runs.
“It does take a bit of the heat off,” Dickson said.
“Our batting has been a bit skinny in the past couple of years, but we’ve put time into the kids and now that they’ve made a couple of scores, we’re starting to see the fruits of our labour.”
RSL vs Nyah District
NYAH District crashed back down to earth last week, losing to premiership rivals St Mary’s by 10 wickets.
The Demons were missing key members of the team and will be keen to get Joel Walsh back this week.
Still, this is a potential banana skin game against a resurgent RSL, who find themselves in the top four.
Ryan Hinton was at his best last week, hitting a brilliant 127 as his side recorded a huge win in the context of their season over Ultima TUF.
A win here for the Blues would almost confirm a finals spot, with the bye and a guaranteed six points in the final round.
For Nyah, the lure of a home final in week one is at stake, with the Bombers coming hard in the back half of the season. Expect a high-intensity game.
Swan Hill vs Woorinen
WOORINEN’S season is on the line against bottom-of-the-table Swan Hill.
There was potential for the Tigers to come into this match underdone, having not played in three weeks.
They also haven’t recorded a win since the return from Christmas, which leaves them sitting just outside the top four.
For a side with such class cricketers in their line-up, it would be hard to fathom them missing finals, especially after such a strong start to the season, but this is a winnable game for the Swans, who improved last week against Wandella.
The Swans will have fast bowling all-rounder Sebastian Linssen return in a crucial boost to their depleted bowling stocks.
While the Tigers are beatable, the Swans can expect to come up against a desperate outfit.
