AFTER disappointing losses last Saturday, both Barham-Koondrook and Woorinen will be desperate to not only return to the winners’ list, but resurrect their top four hopes when the two teams clash in Saturday’s SHDCA match of the round.
For the Raiders, a win is a must if they are to remain in the hunt for finals, with their seven-wicket loss to St Mary’s-Tyntynder last weekend knocking them out of the four.
Making Barham-Koondrook’s task harder is that they still have the bye to come, meaning that every match from here on in is a must-win for the Raiders, according to their captain Jayden Hall.
“It’s do or die for us now, to even give ourselves a sniff we’re going to have to win our last two games and hope the teams above us don’t win all of theirs,” Hall told the Gannawarra Times this week.
“I think everyone understands how big a game it is, so hopefully we’re in the right space mentally for when we turn up on Saturday.
“They’re (Woorinen) a very strong with the bat, but they also have two of the premier bowlers this season as well.
“Obviously Dean Morpeth and Darren Rushton are the keys with the bat and they have a very distinctive style, which is something we’ve been discussing at training this week and trying to find ways to negate that as best we can.”
Woorinen’s Guri Singh (32 wickets @ 11.28) and Robert Rush (25 wickets @ 12.96) lead the SHDCA’s wicket takers this season, with the pair the number one and two-ranked bowlers in the association.
As good as they have been however, the Raiders also have some key weapons with the ball in hand, with Garry Lolicato (22 wickets @ 17.36) and Chameera Akurugoda (18 wickets @ 12.83) also among the top 10 bowlers for wickets taken in the league this season.
Woorinen’s batting has long been regarded as its strength, but after being bowled out in three of their four red ball games this season, including twice for sub-100 totals, it is now on area of focus, according to Tigers captain Dean Morpeth.
“There have been moments where individuals have batted OK in recent weeks, but we just haven’t been consistent enough as a team,” Morpeth said.
“I thought Jason Mangiameli has shown a bit over the past fortnight and proved that he’s batting OK, he’s been hitting the ball really well and I think he’s progressing and Darren (Rushton) has made a couple of big scores.
“Overall, we’re a little undermanned, but our good players just have to get the job done for us, that’s the message that’s been delivered, that if you think you’re a good player, then we need you to step up and win us the game.
“We have a few guys out and we’re having some depth issues at the moment, but aside from that, our good players just need to stand up.
“Realistically, either ‘Dazza’ (Rushton) or I have to make a 50 plus score and then one of the others need to make a score above 25 or 30.
“If we can do that, we should score around 160 to 180 and that puts us in the game as we have been bowling pretty well.”
Woorinen were without batters Cooper Fox and Mitchell Uhlhorn for last Saturday’s eight-wicket loss to Nyah District, with the pair expected to be absent again.
For the Raiders, Warren Lolicato is expected to return to help strengthen a batting line-up that like Woorinen’s, needs to improve.
“We’ve spoken about it a few times this year, but we need to have a bit more resilience with the bat,” Hall said.
“I don’t know how many times we’ve collapsed this year, we just lose too many wickets in succession and we lose them too quickly.
“I know it’s tough and we need to give ourselves time to get in, for example last weekend was a tough wicket to get in on, but both Corey (Daniels) and Lance (Davidson) showed that once you got your eye in, there were runs there.
“We just need to find a way to dig in a bit more and have a bit more resilience with the bat.”
