After making the move from Armidale City to skipper City United this season, Smith couldn’t have dreamt of a much better start, aside from City getting the win.

Smith though was drawing a lot of positives from the way they fought it out to the final ball.

“It was a big step in the right direction. As I said to the fellas afterwards it’s onwards and upwards for us,” he said.

He said it was a really gutsy effort especially in the field.

“They could have gone quiet in the middle overs and dropped their bundle but they kept fighting,” Smith said.

It would have been easy to get dejected when, after striking early, Lincoln Peters (92) and Michael Rixon (69) had whittled the required runs down to about 40. 

But they kept pressing and were rewarded by picking up both in the space of a couple of balls.

Earlier Smith had shown what a handy acquisition he’s going to be.

“I think a lot of belief has been put into me being given the captaincy straight away,” he said. 

Saturday went some way to repaying that.

“I was right once I hit about 60 or 70. I was seeing them a lot better,” he said.

“I was a bit scratchy early on.”