The game went down to the second last over, man of the match Chris Fox hitting the Blues to victory the third ball of the 39th over.

“It was a cracking match,” Blues coach Peter Holmes said.

The game was played over four innings with both sides batting for 20 and then switching.

“Tamworth Blue were probably pretty well in front at the half-way point but the Gold bowled really well in their second innings and got a lead of about 40 runs,” Holmes said,

“They really bowled well in the first 10 and tightened it right up.”

The Blues were 2-71 after their first 20 with Nick Mead (30) and Fox (43no) setting a cracking pace.

The Gold had earlier made 3-43 of their 20.

“We bowled well and batted well that first 20,” Holmes said.

“We probably batted ourselves into a hole in that first 10 of the second innings.”

They only scored 12 runs in comparison to the Gold’s 34 in the same period as they built to 111 with Eddie Williams scoring a brilliant 34.

But Fox and Jock Smith (9no) saw the Blues over the line with seven wickets to spare.

It completed an undefeated season for the them.

“A lot of these boys this was their first year of rep cricket,” Holmes said.

“They’ve all improved as players and gelled as a team.”

As had the Gold, and Holmes went into Sunday anticipating a closer match than their meeting back in the first round.

The Gold had edged out Narrabri and Armidale on run-rate to make the final, and coach Craig Baker couldn’t have been prouder of the way they have developed over the season.

“Their improvement from the start of the season has been tremendous,” he said, adding that Sunday was the best fielding effort they’d had all season.

He thought a few more runs “would have made the game very interesting”.

“Our goal in the first dig was not to concede too many wickets,” he said.

They weren’t concerned too much about the runs.

Being only three down at the break enabled them to give the players a “licence not to leave anything in the tank”, which Williams for one didn’t.

“We promoted Eddie up the order,” Baker said.

“We put him up there as a pinch hitter.”

Adam Williams got him in his 3-15. Jono Herring (2-7), Logan Spinks (1-3) and Sam Anderson (1-14) shared the remaining wickets, the Blues also affecting three run outs.

Baker said Charlie Walsh (1-15) again bowled tight with his leg-spinners.

Ben Shephard (1-17) was similarly tidy.