Woorinen v St Mary’s Tyntynder
ST Mary’s Tyntynder will seek to lock away a Kookaburra Cup final berth tomorrow when they travel to face Woorinen.
While the threat of inclement weather threatens to put a dampener on this weekend’s fixtures, should the rain stay away, the Tigers-Bulldogs match shaped as a must-win for both clubs.
A loss would leave the ladder-leading St Mary’s Tyntynder at risk of being overtaken by Nyah District, RSL, Wandella or even Woorinen.
The Bulldogs are aiming to qualify for their fourth straight Kookaburra Cup final.
Captain Nathaniel Holmes-Brown was aware that anything less than his team’s best just won’t do.
“It’s great for the competition with the evenness across the league and it means every team has to play their best cricket week in, week out, and we’re no exception to that,” Holmes-Brown told The Guardian this week.
“We’re excited for the challenge if we get on the park and hopefully we can play the style of cricket we want to play.”
Woorinen missed an opportunity to be more firmly in the mix with their disappointing performance against Wandella last Saturday, bowled out for 114 despite a 58-run opening partnership.
The one positive was that even with a monumental batting collapse, the Tigers still scored their runs at a remarkably brisk rate.
Captain Cooper Fox said it was a trait they would need again if they are to topple the reigning premiers.
“It’s a huge game for us, but simply put, we’ll be just looking at trying to find some form again,” Fox said.
“We’re still trying to work out what our best team looks like and where everyone best fits into our line-up, even though we’ve made some big scores so far this season.
“Our big strength is with the bat, and particularly our ability to score quickly, but it all comes down to consistency as well and that will be our challenge.
“We’ll need everyone to stand up in order to beat them, but especially ‘Morpy’ (Dean Morpeth) and ‘Dazza’ (Darren Rushton).
“The other guy I’d love to see play a big knock is Connor (Fletcher), he is one of the best batsmen I’ve seen technically, but he just hasn’t converted that into a big score as yet, but I’m pretty confident he’s not far away.”
As good as the Tigers can be with the bat, the Bulldogs are equally damaging with the ball, especially the likes of Robin Sebastian, Charlie King, Dom Violi and Holmes-Brown himself.
“(Woorinen) have the ability to make big scores and have done so a couple of times already this season, and while that is their big strength, we feel our main strength is to restrict teams to low totals with the ball,” Holmes-Brown said.
“We feel we match up well against them, although we need to be wary of guys like Dean Morpeth and Cooper Fox, who can take a game away from you quickly.
“(Fox) probably hasn’t reached the heights of previous seasons so far, but he has the capabilities of making a big score very quickly.
“They are two players that we’ll be watching closely and we’ll have plans in place to limit their scoring ability.”
