Nyah District remain on the hunt to secure back-to-back premierships after winning their way through to this weekend’s grand final with an 82-run victory over RSL on Saturday’s semi final.
The Demons also remain in the running to become the first SHDCA club to claim all three A grade titles in one season, having already claimed the McDonalds T20 and Kookaburra Cup premierships against Wandella and Woorinen.
Batting first, Nyah District fought their way to 9-150 on a wicket and outfield that favoured the bowlers, before dismissing the Blues for 68 in the 25th over of their innings.
A five wicket haul from Demons captain Ben Shadbolt helped turn the game towards the home side’s favour, along with a dogged innings from Dean Harrop, whose 40 from 73 balls helped his team post a defendable total.
Joel Walsh (32) and Charlie Boulton (24) were also solid with the bat, but it was the performance of Harrop that garnered the most praise from his skipper.
“We didn’t get away to the best start with the bat, but we’re a team that bats pretty deep, especially with guys like ‘Deano’ (Harrop) batting at number seven,” Shadbolt said.
“He was super, he came in at a critical point where it could have gone either way and really steadied the ship with the bat.
“We knew that if we got to 130 plus it would be a challenging chase, the pitch wasn’t the easiest to bat on and the outfield was slow and we said at the break that 150 felt as good as 180 given the conditions.
“That said, we knew we had to bowl in the right areas and for the most part we did. We just bowled to our field, built the pressure and allowed them to make the mistakes.
“It wasn’t our best effort with the bat and it’s been a bit symptomatic of our last couple of games, with our top order maybe not quite reaching the same heights as we did earlier in the season.
“It’s not through a lack of effort of ability, and to be honest our starts haven’t been that bad either, we just haven’t been able to find those one or two big partnerships that we would have liked.
“Regardless of how we’re making them though, we’re still posting defendable scores and as long as we are able to do that, we’ll back our bowlers in to get the job done.”
The Caldwell brothers were once again among RSL’s leading bowlers, with Patrick claiming 4-30 from 14 overs and Brenton taking 2-40 from 16 overs.
Equally impressive was the performance of young first change bowler Henry Cox, whose 10 overs at the crease netted him figures of 2-19 and included three maidens.
The Blues run chase didn’t get away to the best of starts, with Paul Munro (2) and Stuart Patterson (2) both falling cheaply to Shadbolt in the Blues’ early overs.
Ryan Hinton on the other hand looked dangerous on his way to scoring a team high 36 off just 29 balls, before an errant pull shot gave Nyah District their fourth wicket, with the Blues still needing 109 runs for victory.
There was no coming back from that point on for the Blues, with the visitors losing their last five scalps for just 13 runs, to be eventually bowled out for 68 in the 25th over.
The result means Nyah District will play Barham-Koondrook in this Saturday’s SHDCA A grade grand final after the Raiders defeated Wandella by 88 runs, with the Demons captain looking forward to being back on the big stage for the second season in a row.
“It’s exciting, any time you play in a grand final it is always pretty exciting and we’re just glad we’ll get the opportunity to do it again on Saturday,” Shadbolt said.
“We’ve been there with this group of players a couple of times now and although we got the job done last year, that will count for nothing this weekend.
“Barham-Koondrook are a really good side and proved that with their win on the weekend, we know we’re going to have to turn up with the right mindset if we are to beat them because the one thing we know about them is they are a determined team that will throw everything at us.”
