A DATE with Nyah District in January’s Kookaburra Cup grand final will be the reward when Woorinen hosts RSL in a cut-throat pseudo-elimination final Saturday afternoon.
With both teams locked on three wins apiece and sitting above the Raiders on percentage, the winner of Saturday’s encounter will guarantee themselves a place in this season’s one-day decider.
With RSL having won their past three matches and the Tigers having chased down monster totals in their past two games, both clubs are also considered to be among the SHDCA’s in-form teams.
Woorinen captain Dean Morpeth said his team were embracing the do-or-die encounter.
“It’s great that it will all come down to the last game, second versus third and for us, it’s against a team that’s had our measure over the past few years,” Morpeth told the Gannawarra Times.
“(RSL) perform pretty well against us and ‘Ryno’ (Ryan Hinton) especially, his average would be massive against us and we genuinely struggle to get him out.
“With that said, they have plenty of other dangerous batters as well, but he always gets a hold of us.”
Although Hinton may have been a constant thorn in Woorinen’s side over the past few seasons, he won’t be on Saturday, with the opener set to miss, along with opening bowler Mitch Hinton.
Woorinen will be close to full strength, with Morpeth himself the only one to be in doubt.
Despite the absence of their star batter, RSL captain Oscar Hier said he had the team at his disposal to cause yet another upset, with veterans Brenton Caldwell and Stuart Patterson combining for a matchwinning 101-run partnership against St Mary’s Tyntynder last Saturday.
“Since we played Nyah (District), our efforts with both the bat and ball have improved,” Hier said.
“We looked back at that game and realised that we needed to work on a few things and especially with our batting.
“We’re just playing smart cricket, we’re building partnerships through the middle of the innings and not throwing our wickets away.
“‘Brenno’ (Caldwell) has been a star the last couple of weeks, he’s such a pro, he goes out there, does his job and protects us in the middle order and he probably enabled ‘Patto’ (Patterson) to go out there and whack them last week.
“That’s almost been the story for us the last couple of games, we’ve just been consistent with the bat, ball and in the field.”
It’s a similar story for Woorinen, with consistency being the key word over their past two matches after a slow start to the season, despite Morpeth also conceding his team’s best is yet to come.
“We’re better, but we’re still not perfect, but we have been getting enough OK performances from guys to help get us over the line each week,” Morpeth said.
“The feeling around the team at the moment is good and I think we’ll be pretty close to full strength.
“We’ve chased down two decent scores in a row, and I think a lot of that is our guys having the confidence to go out there and just be themselves.
“I say it to the guys a lot, but we are a team that lives by the sword and dies by the sword, we just want to get out there, enjoy our cricket and see where it takes us.
“I thought we bowled pretty well last week against Barham, but I think we’re realistic about where we are at with the ball as well.
“We know teams are going to score above average scores against us, but we know if we can win the battle when we bat and be pretty good at the basics with the ball, then we’ll be in the game.”
With both Woorinen and RSL’s big strength’s being their ability to score, and with a batter-friendly deck at Woorinen, it could be yet another big chase for whoever is batting second, but with a Kookaburra Cup grand final berth on the line, expect this game to go right down to the wire.
