Warriors miss out

By Gavin Staindl
THE West Gippsland Cricket Association representative side has narrowly missed out on making finals of the division two Country Week cricket tournament played throughout last week.
The 13-man side that consisted of members from nine local WGCA teams, finished with two wins and two losses and missed out on a finals appearance by only one game in the week-long tournament.
After being promoted from division three in 2008-09, the Warriors have steadily improved and, according to coach Luke Sibley, this year’s side was unlucky to miss out on finals.
“Tuesday’s match against Leongatha hurt us,” Sibley said. “Coming off a win (on Monday) we bowled Leongatha out for 175 and were cruising at 3/110 before we lost seven wickets for 45 runs and lost it,” he said.
The Warriors beat South West at Noble Park on Monday and followed it up on Wednesday by beating the then undefeated Bairnsdale at Dandenong but the loss to eventual champions Leongatha proved to be the one that got away.
“It was all pretty close up at the top of the ladder, that’s why Tuesday’s match (against Leongatha) hurt us,” Sibley said.
Emerald representative Clinton Marsh was the stand-out for West Gippsland, leading his side in runs and finishing second overall in wickets only behind Cardinia’s Dwayne Doig.
Marsh and Doig were also pivotal in the Warriors’ win over the South West Cricket Association.
Down 7/118 chasing 182, the pair combined for a 60-run partnership to guide the Warriors to the week’s first win.
Marsh and Doig were at it again against the Bairnsdale Cricket Association, both making healthy contributions with the bat and combining for five wickets in their side’s 37-run win.
Unfortunately, their contributions weren’t good enough to get West Gippsland over the line against Ferntree Gully, which rolled the Warriors by four wickets on the Thursday, denying them a spot in the finals.
But in his first year as coach of the representative side Sibley was upbeat about his team’s performance given the fresh faces to the team.
“We debuted six players into the side … and we probably had four or five players aged in the low 20s. We are not far away from being at that top level, we just need to get a few games into the younger blokes,” he said.
Unlike many other leagues, the West Gippsland Cricket Association does not make use of turf wickets so for some of the new members to the side, playing on a turf surface was an unfamiliar experience.
“We do need to get more guys used to playing turf cricket … it will be that right type of cricket that will take us to the next level,” Sibley said.