They have won four of their last five games and felt they were on the verge of victory before rain curtailed them in their major semi-final preview against Old Boys last week.

“We’ll take a lot of positives out of it,” batsmen Josh Crowe said.

“We know if we bowl in good areas we can trouble their good batsmen.”

“If we’re on we’re going to be hard to beat.”

And while they haven’t done a lot wrong with the ball, there is room for improvement in their batting.

Their last couple of games they’ve probably been a bit short of what they should have scored but the good thing is they’re not relying on one person to score the runs.

West Tamworth and North Tamworth will meanwhile both head into their minor semi-final full of confidence.

The Redbacks destroyed City United to crawl their way into the four, while Wests had Bective-East on the ropes after rolling Old Boys the previous game.

“Obviously we’ve played well over the last few weeks, which has been a boost to the confidence,” skipper Tim Kensell said.

After making the finals for the first time in several seasons last year, Wests are an arguably even better side this season.

The addition of Tom Scoble particularly has bolstered the attack and turned it into one of the best in the competition.

“As long as we can put the runs on the board we can definitely bowl teams out,” Kensell said.

He is a big part of that, and also a key figure with the bat.

And like Souths, different players have been standing up each week.

Last round Shawn Mepham was the star with 78. The game before that Dave Mudaliar made 48.

“It has been quite pleasing that everyone has been chipping in. We’re not relying on one player,” he said.

Rixon siblings Michael and Brendan will be the prized scalps.

“It we can contain those two boys it will help us and go a long way to winning the game,” Kensell said.

Brendan returned the compliment, the Norths skipper regarding the allrounder as probably Wests’ best bowler and identifying him, Mudaliar and Sage Cook as the “three guys we’ve got plans for”.

They will be without Kris Halloran, after he didn’t qualify for the finals.

“He’s a big loss for us,” Rixon said.

They still have, he believes, a team to really compete, and is looking forward do seeing how Lachie Bradfield goes stepping up from second grade to open the batting.

“We’ve got to do the simple things right and build pressure, which is what we have been doing the last few weeks,” Rixon said.

The other thing they’ve done really well the last couple of weeks is take their chances. 

Adam Greentree is also back bowling well after a bit of a slow start to the season. New ball partner Brad Redshaw has also really found his groove again.