There was an inevitably that the weather would intervene, and the showers that rolled through the city just after 9am on Sunday wiped out the chance of any play.

"Because we'd had so much rain during the week the fields were water-logged at Riverside 1," Old Boys captain Ben Middlebrook said.

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The game was poised for an intriguing second day with Old Boys 5-71 in reply to Souths' first innings of 94.

As the side that finished higher on the ladder Old Boys go through to the preliminary final where they will play City United.

Their major semi-final against North Tamworth had been called off on Friday to allow council to concentrate on preparing the grounds for the first and second grade minor semi-finals.

Also the Tamworth District Cricket Association president, Middlebrook said it was a fantastic effort by council to get the game on with the amount of rain that fell during the week and lose as little time as they did - they only lost about half an hour of play on Saturday.

Knowing the weather was likely to come into play, after winning the toss Souths skipper Tom Groth elected to bat first.

"Our plan was to set a bit of a total and then have a crack at them," he said.

At 2-71 and "doing it pretty easy on a weathered pitch" they were looking well on target for the 120/130 they would have liked, but they lost their way, losing 3-0 at one stage.

The skipper was the third of those for 21, having with Kaleb McIlveen (22) put them in a pretty good position.

Bryan Warren (3-37) and BJ Cameron (2-12) then gave them every reason to hope as Dan Bryant (23 off 22) conversely steered Old Boys out of a potentially sticky situation.

He was the only of the top five to make double figures.

It capped off an outstanding game for the allrounder after sparking Souths' collapse.

Middlebrook thought the Old Boys bowlers were probably a bit sloppy early on.

"I think the guys thought they'd take a wicket every ball and it just didn't happen," he said.

Bryant (5-22) and Zac Craig (3-7) though came on and "put the ball in the right spot" to bowl them back into it.

"We haven't been playing great cricket but I know we've got much better cricket to play," Middlebrook said.

Groth was philosophical about bowing out in the manor that they did. That's cricket, he said.

"We were up against it all week with the weather," he said.

"It was a pretty wet week and then obviously we knew the game was going to be rain affected, it was just a matter of how bad."