In the U/17 grand final we played at home against our old enemy Eildon Park and turned the tables on them after the defeat they inflicted on us last year in the semi final. In fact we smashed them. Bowling 1st we had them 9/49 before being all out for 78. The bowling honours were shared all round with Matt Young kick starting us early for 2 wkts, then multiple wickets to Josh Gregory, Butch, Simmo & Josh Philips. At stumps on the first day we were 1/20 losing Macca early. On day 2 Troy McGown anchored us home with a great knock from 1st Ball to last .. Simmo helped him before Butch strode to the crease to help get the final few runs with Troy. In the end everybody did something to contribute to the win. It was a fitting end to a year that we dedicated to our Captain and celebrated all that had drawn us together for a year to remember …. forever !!!!

 

The 2nd XI ground out a victory in a hard fought game which saw a result at 5.15pm on the 2nd day.  Winning the toss and batting, Knox Gardens were in trouble early with the score at 1/2 at the end of the first over, Brendan Blizzard being caught behind for 2. Josh Gregory and Ben McLean then put on a slow and steady partnership, entrawling the crowd with just 7 runs off the next 11 overs. Ben was dismissed with his score on 17 and a handy partnership of 50 runs with Josh. Ray Borg strode (without crutches) to the wicket and kept the ball rolling putting on another partnership of 20 runs with Boof, although only adding 2 runs himself, Ray did the team thing and occupied valuable crease time, and at the 31st over we were looking solid at 3/73. This bought together the 2 Josh's, Boof & Flip (Josh Phillips). After a brilliantly solid 46, Boof was adjudged caught behind, incorrectly in most peoples view, and only just missed out on the promised 6 pack. Flip & Matty Van Lith took us into tea with the score on 4/107. Shortly after tea, Van Lith was dismissed for 10, Flip was given out caught for 38, Porno, judged to be padding up in line with the stumps, out for 3 and Wilko clean bowled for 2. At this stage the scorecard was looking ok, but not brilliant, at 8/156… runs on the board. Stand up Adam Metherall, with a blunting knock of 43, he really hit the ball hard, and added those extra runs to squeeze our total past 200, with great assistance from Matty Young and Richard Taylor. We closed the innings all out for 204, just after 5pm, and South Belgrave's skipper decided to call it a day and begin their chase on Sunday.

 

Day 2 started really well for the boys, with Wilko swinging the ball 2 feet trapping South Belgrave's skipper, and danger man, Beardshaw 4 feet out of his crease, directly in front of middle. Needless to say we were overjoyed, and he was pissed off with a grand final blob. The boys then stuck out a good partnership between White and Hart of South Belgrave, with Matty Van Lith finally dismissing ex-team mate White clean bowled with the score on 2/57. A brilliant spell of bowling from the skipper Jason 'Porno' Buljabasic saw him take 3/4 off 8 balls, and South Belgrave on the back foot at 6/75. Unable to recover despite some gallant batting from the tail enders South were eventually dismissed for 142, Knox Gardens victors by 62 runs. Bowling performances from Wilko (2-31), Porno (4-17), Matty Young (2-14), VL (1-20) and Crystal (1-18). Unfortunately Dick Talyor didn't claim a wicket with 0-35 from 15 overs, Dick bowled superbly all year, and was the spearhead of our attack. Dick won the 2nd XI bowling average with 20 wickets at 13.65. In a testament to the way our bowlers bowled, we had 2 LBW's, 7 Bowleds and a Caught Behind, which shows we bowled the right lines in a high pressure game.