What a weekend - storms circling the grounds, lightning, thunder and some innovative Captaincy to get games finished - where we were on top.

An improvement on last weekend with 4 wins but still well behind our earlier standards. Rain affected 2 games with Draws in A1 and B2 Red - both teams well on top.

Performances of the Round
+ A1 (current Premiers) were denied a win with rain - chasing 127 they were 3/63 and on a roll. This puts them just out of the top 4 but wthin easy striking distance. How about the ageless Greg Stoneham who took 4/31. Greg is one of our Club Greats (number 5 in the all time list) with over 300 A Grade wickets under his belt
+ A2 - consolidated their spot in the top 3 with an emphatic win over higher placed ARL. With rain about to belt down Simon put the hitters in and they knocked up the 82 quickly - well done fellas
+ In B2, the Reds slammed 225 in their 40 overs with Brendam Ham (84) and Michael Banner (53) getting among the runs. Unfortunately rain stopped play with Galston 1/11
+ The B2 Blues continue to show their guts. At one stage we were 5/11 after 7 overs on a very slow and steamy Galston Oval with a ball moving around like some of the old timers have not seen for many years. But we recovered to 94 and rolled them for 64
+ In C1 the lads continue their winning ways with another very close game against Castle Hill - winning by 4 runs. Another Club Great - Jon Burns took 6/21 and was clearly the match winner.
+ C3's had another loss chasing a score over 200 but Josh Lovell just keeps doing it with 5/46 - his second bag of 5 in 2 games.
+ D1 continued their close games against Hornsby. After a tie in the first game against Hornsby they they got up again by with a margin of 2 runs!

Fast scoring
An achievement that didn't get much mention last week was the tremendous performance of Ian Paterson (D1) who took (with a bit of help from Roger Friend) 30 runs off an over. the scoring sequence was 6,6,6,6,W (plus one run), 4. Ian was sitting next to Tony Hadley at the Club (the man who had 29 taken off his over the previous week) when asked what it felt like said 'great' - Tony just sat quietly and had another beer.

Team Standings
Our position in the table is:
+ A1 - 36 points (5th spot - 3 off 3rd place)
+ A2 - 43 (3rd)
+ B1 - 50 (2nd)
+ B2 Blue - 56 (1st)
+ B2 Red - 42 (4th or 5th - to be determined)
+ C1 - 51 (= 1st)
C2 Blue - 44 (4th)
C2 Red - 31 (6th)
C3 - 30 (6th)
D1 - 68 (1st)
D2 - 37 (4th)

In the Club Championship we are still in first place (1,568 points) ahead of Kissing point (1,275 points).

Just bowl straight
The mighty B2 Blues may have set a record (no records kept on this one). Of the 10 wickets that fell 9 were bowled - including the first 5 in the opening 7 overs!

Keeping it in the family
Our Club has a great record in promoting young players but last week we took this to a new level. In the competition leading D1 side 4 sets of fathers and son combinations played: Roger and Simon Friend, Ian and Justin Paterson, Greg and James Fiedler, Geoff and Josh Mudge - great stuff fellas.

Famous last words
Big Martin Boon (B2) was saying during the week that he had never scored a golden duck. Guess what - he got one on the weekend. This matches Tim Coverdale's (B1) now infamous comment after 13 wins in a row that they were going to equal the Club record of 14 - it happened again when they lost.

That man Hadley
Club legend Tony Hadley (B2) continues to make news even when he does nothing on the field. This time he brought along a few comforts from home to watch the game. Galston Oval has the most cramped players watching area in the comp. Tony decided to bring not just a chair but a full oversized reclining hammock that occupied most of the area. It was put to good use after Martin Boon got out 1st ball. Good one mate.

Posted by Ross Anderson on January 25, 2004 06:00 AM