Welcome to this week’s edition of Tah Talk with Joel Foster. This week we take a look at the Men’s Club Champ race hotting up, the complication of cricket, and Don Sellin’s legacy.
A big thank you once again to Scott MacNeill and the team at Gibson MacNeill Lawyers for their partnership with this season. If you have any legal needs, no matter the size, visit them at www.gibsonmacneill.com.au
Men are back in the race
After a weekend full of fun, our Men’s playing group of rocketed back into Club Championship contention.
It was a brilliant Saturday against Parramatta, the Tahs winning 4 from 5 grades, including an amazing 10 wicket victory in 2nd Grade thanks to an 11 wicket haul from Tom Kaye.
With Northern Districts suffering a few losses as well, it has meant that the top 3 clubs are only separated by 18 points, which is 1 4th grade victory. Parramatta sit in 1st place on 1,2902, Northern Districts in 2nd on 1,280, and ourselves in 3rd on 1,272.
Throw St George in who are only 42 points behind Parramatta, and it’s really anyone’s race.
The thing that comforts me is that we’ve been here before. With 8 Club Championships in the last 26 years, it means we have experience when it matters at the business end of the regular season.
Plenty of those Club Championship victories have come with the Tahs in 2nd or even 3rd position coming into the last round. So confidence is high.
Our Men’s playing group has the chance to do something special this season.
Simple game full of complications
W2s played an amazing game of cricket on Sunday against Campbelltown, with a Duckworth/ Lewis, rain interrupted match ending in a tie.
I have to admit that I don’t ever recall a Duckworth Lewis match ending in a tie. Common thought is that Duckworth-Lewis provides you with a target, and if you don’t hit that target you lose.
We were actually cruising at 2/132 chasing 226 when rain hit, diminishing our target to 166.
With 6 runs needed to win off the last over, 5 ruins and a wicket on the last ball meant we were only at 165.
There was plenty of confusion at the ground, with players and officials alike also unclear of the rule. But a tie was settled on.
It comes in the same week that the MCC changed a quirky law in the game.
Previously, by law, if you hit a straight drive that hit the bowlers end stumps, then rolled back and hit the batters end stumps, you were out bowled. It happened in a game in the UK last summer
Who knew!
Some people may say cricket is a simple game, but the idiosyncrasies can be mind-blowing.
Dollars was one in a million
There has been a real outpouring of emotion this week for Don “Dollars”Sellin after he passed away on Wednesday.
Dollars was an institution at this club well before I arrived, but he always made his presence felt.
He had health issue all throughout his life, so to get to 82 showed the perseverance and determination of the man.
I constantly hear of the great banter between Dollars and many old players, especially from the 1990’s and 2000”s. With Dollars as the net Captains, training was apparently the funniest time of the week.
But underneath those exchanges was a sense of respect. They was a feeling that was never lost.
Dollars had a rough time of it over the last couple of years. Mike Pawley and a few others have mentioned they would visit Dollars one afternoon, only to leave convinced that night would be his last. But the next day, he was up and about like a rockstar.
He hasn’t been around the playing group over the last few years as his health deteriorated, but I can assure you that the players that knew him had great love for a great manly man.
Rest in Peace Dollars. You were one in a million.
