A five-wicket last round haul has parachuted Gerhard Labashagne into the Tamworth Blue side for Sunday’s Connolly Cup final as Tamworth look to complete the Northern Inland double.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The undefeated Blues will take on Gwydir for the silverware after Gwydir dismantled the Armidale Second XI in their semi-final.
The Blues earned the chance to add to a trophy chest that already includes the War Veterans Cup with a narrow win over Gunnedah.
They will welcome back Jye Paterson and Toby Whale, while Labashagne comes in as the third frontline seam option.
“He’s in good form,” Blues skipper Chris Paterson referring to the Bective quick’s 5-21 last Saturday.
“He’s very accurate and a very whole-hearted bowler.”
He said he’ll balance out what the other quicks -Tait Jordan and Brad Redshaw - offer.
They’ll be backed up by spinning trio (Jye) Paterson, Dan Collinson and Dave Brannan.
“It’s a good young side,” (Chris) Paterson said.
“If everyone plays to their abilities we should give it a good shake.”
They missed out on playing Gwydir through the round games, but were expecting a tough challenge then.
That’s only been reinforced by the Bingara side’s eight wicket semi-final win, although the mode of their dominance did come as a bit of a surprise to Paterson.
“I was thinking they were a more strong batting side.
“I’m not so sure after last week,” he said.
They routed Armidale for just 66.
“They’re obviously a good side. We’re going to have to be on our game,” he said.
The Blues had a few stutters themselves with the bat, and thinking they’ll need something around 250, Paterson will be keen to see the 20s, and 30s they’ve been scoring turn into bigger scores. He couldn’t fault what they did with the ball against Gunnedah, they just didn’t get a lot of luck.
North Tamworth’s Kris Halloran will be the key wicket.
“Especially with the first grade experience he’s got down here,” Paterson said.
“He’s still one of the best bats in Tamworth.”
Gwydir gave away 16 extras against Armidale and skipper Luke Smith said it has to be sharper with the ball if they want to take out the title.
"We have the bowlers to take them on but we just want to bowl a bit more disciplined, not give away the extras,” he said.
"Hopefully we have a good enough batting lineup to set a good total.
"We haven't played them this year, we had it called off with the heat last week so we are not really sure what we will get with them or how they will be.”
