Manly spoil Stag’s weekend – Monday News – Rd 9 vs Gordon

4th Grade – Manly 127(D.Reynolds 27) lost to Gordon 3/128

After a few great wins 4th grade were smashed at Killara Oval. Sent in on a hard wicket with a bit of uneven bounce we were in immediate trouble with Old man Trewartha bowled. Sam Hole (14) tried to dig us out but he got an edge. Matt Alexander (4) had a ball come through  a bit quicker than what he expected and mishit a pull shot. Max Burgess (11) was looking good but got a good one. Matt Cole (18) and Josh Petersen (11) tried to repair some damage and were looking comfortable but Matt followed a slower ball and got a fine edge to it. Josh then was adjudged LBW. Reynolds (27) and Evans (4) were hopeful of a partnership but they got their wires crossed and Evans was run out. Dylan marshall (14) looked good as well and once again did not look like getting out (he rarely does this fella!) but it took a spinners slow full toss to bring him undone with a mishit straight up in the air. Frustratingly Danny then bottom edged a half tracker onto his stumps. Wilson (8) and Toomey (8no) hit some clean shots but we managed a poor 127.

Quick wickets were required. Brad got one in his first over but the two blokes in pushed the score to 52 before we got both of them in quick succession. This lifted our energy levels but their two new bats effortlessly dispatched our bad balls and raced to the victory total. Young bloke from last year, Axel Cahlin, once again was a thorn in our side. I see he has played some 5th grade. Mate, if you’re reading this…change clubs, you are way above 4s! 

As for this lamentable result…hopefully some post Xmas malaise only. There were some obvious things wrong throughout the day, starting with the kick off in the game of touch. There was a real lacksadaisical approach starting from the capt and going thoughout the team and we can’t afford this again, the way the table is. Everyone seemed indifferent to the way the game was unfolding.  We have held onto 3rd spot, 5 points clear of 12th. Need to play better boys! 

Wazza 

As per usual Dave “Bumps” Farrell after winning the toss had no hesitation in backing his top order and electing to bat first on what proved to be a quality cricket wicket. The early morning dew leaving some surface moisture on the pitch proved to be nothing of importance to our openers Billy “Flippers” Darcy and Joel “Peza” Mason as both batted well to put Manly in great position for the rest of the Manly innings. The pair put on 98 runs for the first wicket with Peza falling first for 63 which would see Tommy Kaye at the crease.

Flippers took on the dominating roll in the partnership whilst Tom elegantly worked his way into his innings. The partnership was majestic too say the least with Flippers expressing his apparent love and amazing skill of the cover drive before falling for 77. The pair put on 140 runs for the 2nd wicket with Tommy Kaye falling a few overs later for quality knock of 65. The Manly middle and lower order attempted to add to strong platform that the top 3 had provided however it took the wicket of most in pursuit of extra runs that would see Manly finish the innings at 9/299 after 50 overs.

The Gordon batting innings did not start in the fashion that Manly would have hoped. It appeared that things were going Gordon’s way with a few too many loose balls that weren’t helping the situation getting punished by the Gordon openers. However in true Manly fashion the boys rallied and applied the pressure back on the opposition which led to the first breakthrough from Jacob “Steve Bradbury” Graham trapping their opener plum in front. This lifted the Manly boys and saw everyone lift in confidence and efforts which brought the game back into our favor. The second opener soon fell caught behind off the bowling of Ben “skittles” Kittlety to dismiss their two set batsmen. Gordon consolidated building a partnership but Manly fought back to take another wicket and slow their chasing efforts. With 15 overs to go Gordon needing 140 to win with 5 wickets in the shed and a set batsmen on 50 in seemed as if Gordon still had a chance, before Steve Bradbury struck again glancing the off peg to remove the set batsmen.

The Gordon tail did wag with Gordon creeping along under the required run rate but still leaving themselves a chance. Some brilliant fielding from Zac “Son of God” Trewartha and some convincing foxing from Tommy Kaye saw 2 runouts in the last few overs to have Gordon 8 down with only several overs remaining with the run rate well over 10 an over. The game was wrapped up in the 48th over by the “son of god” taking the final 2 wickets to leave Gordon 25 short with only 2 overs remaining.

Some strong individual performances and a great team performance saw the boys get over the line in the end to take home the 6 points. Well done boys. Go Manly!

Nick Williams

PGs Manly 189 (M.Pugh 60, L Grant 27no) lost to Sutherland 8/263 (T.Beatty 3/66, M Edwards 2/56)

PGs turned up to Sutherland Oval to see a hard, flat pitch that appeared great for batting. After repeatedly joking about winning the toss and bowling, Mitch Pugh proceeded to lose the toss and bowl first we did.

Mickey Edwards opened up and showed how deadly he can be when he hits his areas, taking out the off stump of an opener with one of a few absolute jaffas. Luke Grant started up the other end, hoping to emulate his last PGs match figures of 3-12 off 10 and looked to be getting some nice swing movement early. Much to the amusement of many of the Manly boys, halfway into Luke’s first over Jordan Daly rather innocuously (and uncoordinatedly) stumbled and fell over. Sam Alexander came over to investigate but his difficulty in establishing lefts and rights made him rather useless and eventually Jordan left the field with 12^th man Zach Trewartha coming on.

The new ball soon lost much of its shine on a hot, sunny day while the hard, abrasive pitch offered very little to the bowlers. Despite the formation of a 94 run partnership, the Manly boys continued to toil away and a double bowling change of Taylor Beatty and Sam Alexander worked a charm with both bowlers claiming an established batsman LBW. All of a sudden the Manly boys were back in it with two fresh sticks at the crease. From here it’s fair to say we nearly bowled very well. The bowlers consistently did the hard work dotting up batsmen for 3 or 4 balls at a time but more often than not the release ball came soon after, giving the batsmen an easy boundary from the last/2^nd last ball of the over. Because of this, although we continued to take wickets, partnerships would form before the fall of each wicket (3-99, 4-157, 5-180, 6-226, 7-242, 8-247) preventing us from gaining much momentum or stemming the flow of runs. Our fielding was quite good throughout the innings although very little seemed to go our way, with a denied caught behind heard RESOUNDINGLY around the ground (not even any exaggeration, I was sitting over 70 metres away) that should have seen their number 10 at the crease in about the 45^th over.

We were set a target of 264 for victory which we agreed was probably around par on this pitch and oval, but we would still need to bat well to get the points. Jarrod Rawlings and Sam Webber opened the batting, starting steadily before Jarrod was trapped in front for 5 bringing the skipper to the crease to steady the ship. These two looked in great control out there but with the score on 47 Sam Webber (18) was trapped in front by Taylor’s Sutherland mate, bringing yesterday’s 2^nd grade saviour Taylor Beatty to the crease, hoping to pick up where he left off. Unfortunately it was not to be as he was out for 11 by the same great bloke. Ryan Farrell (14) batted solidly for a while with Pughy who looked in great nick, but unfortunately the wickets kept falling way too regularly, and despite some vintage Matt Alexander (16 off 10) boundaries the run rate continued to creep up.

Jordan’s attempts to bat with a runner did bring some level of comic relief to the required 130 off 15 overs but when Pughy (60) was robbed, given out LBW shortly afterwards, the task became a lot more difficult. I guess the umpire (same one who somehow missed our earlier caught behind) did have the best view of the LBW as Pughy was about 2 metres down the wicket to the spinner when the ball hit the pad… This brought Luke Grant (27 off 26) to the crease who batted very well but not long afterwards Jordan was apparently stumped (yep same umpy) bringing Sam Alexander (4 off 17) out to the middle. He batted well with Luke for a time before running himself out, ruining any chances for red ink. The innings ended somewhat unexpectedly with the keeper whipping off the bails in what appeared to be a standard exercise to remind Mickey Edwards to stay in his crease. The Umpire (same one again) however, had obviously had enough of this game and gave it out without so much as an appeal, and that was it. Game over.

It was a competitive performance but when push came to shove we just made too many mistakes – With the ball we bowled 21 wides/no balls and probably quite a few too many loose balls, and with the exception of Pughy (60) and Luke (27*), our batsmen didn’t really make the most of the situation as most of us got in but none really continued on to bat with the set batsman. It was hard to separate the bowlers with Sam Alexander (who in fact did not run himself out, Luke actually ran Sam out) bowling the most economically (1-39 off 10) followed by Luke (1-42 off 10) while Mickey Edwards (2-56 off 10) and Taylor (3-66 off 9) took most of the wickets between them.

Special thanks to Cubby and also Wrighty for all their assistance today, everyone in the team really appreciates it. Also thanks to Zach Trewartha who made the trek all the way out to Sutherland to be 12^th man for the game and did a great job fielding with us for 48 overs. Next week is our last game of the season, away against 1^st placed St George. Let’s knock off the top placed team and send our skipper, Luke and Mattoes out with a win…

Jordan