SPOTSWOOD will step into a pressure cooker for five hours on Saturday. Eleven men under the baggy green and gold will be fighting for the Woodsmen’s immediate future.
The consequences of failure will put the club’s Victorian Turf Cricket Association top-flight senior division survival in jeopardy.
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The Woodsmen are second-last, seven points in arrears of the third-last team and will have just two matches left when stumps are drawn at 6pm on Saturday.
It makes the second day’s play against Keilor critical. The Woodsmen had the ascendancy for 90 per cent of the opening day. They rolled Keilor for 218 in 68.5 overs.
Ten of the Blues batsmen contributed a mere 79 runs; there were 12 extras and then the one that got away, Aaron Mato, who made 127.
Woodsmen skipper Andrew Dickinson was still full of bubbles at the change of innings.
‘‘Very happy,’’ he said. ‘‘They were looking for 260, even 300, at one stage.
‘‘Once we got him [Mato] out, we were able to shut them down.’’
But the chasers, too, were ‘shut down’, Jody Hutchinson taking 3-3 as the Woodsmen limped to stumps on 3-25.
