WEST Newport is the undisputed king of the Williamstown and District Cricket Association A1 turf jungle.
The Lions roared to their second flag in three years on Sunday to atone for last season’s gut-wrenching defeat in the big one.
They comprehensively outplayed top-ranked finalist Williamstown Imperials in a 10-wicket romp in the four-day grand final at Bryan Martyn Oval.
Lions player-coach Matt Shiell told the Weekly his players had gone into the game with the odds stacked against them. But they never lost their belief that they could repeat the dose of 2009-10 when they reached the top of the mountain.
“No doubt on current form we went into the game as underdogs,” he said.
“We knew we had what it took to do the job. We’ve played in the last three grand finals so we had the mental edge.”
The Lions had a burning desire to erase the painful memories of last season’s hiccup in the grand final.
Shiell was confident his players had done everything they could on match days in the previous 24 months, but he questioned their attention to detail when it came to training, so changes were implemented from the first day of preseason.
“We sat down at the end of last year quite disappointed,” he said. “We knew we had things to rectify.
“The best thing for us is that we got a reality check, realised what we needed to do and put mechanisms into place.
“It wasn’t a match-day thing. I was always happy with their preparation.
“It was more to do with training and getting the players’ mental approach right and putting basic disciplines in place.”
The exclamation point on the grand final was fittingly provided by tenacious opening bowler Corey Irving.
The 18-year-old left no doubt of victory with a hat-trick in the last over of day three and was named man of the match for taking 14 wickets and making a game-high 48 batting at No.10 in the first dig. Asked to describe the performance, Shiell responded: “Absolutely phenomenal”.
The Lions knew they had the game sewn up on the back of the hat-trick, despite being forced to return on Sunday to make the 16 runs for an outright result, which opener Christian Elliott provided in one over with two fours and a six.
“That was the ultimate high,” Shiell said. “Everyone was up and about. That was the icing on the cake. We knew we had the game in the bag after the hat-trick.”
Irving’s stunning summer is sure to have clubs from higher levels on alert.
The youngster took 51 wickets at 9.1 and was a handy lower-order batsman with 192 at 21.3.
The building blocks for the Lions’ triumph came back on day one when the Imps were rolled for 142.
The Lions made a solid start to the chase, endured a shaky middle period where they lost 5-19 but rallied late to accumulate 232 and a lead of 90.
The Imps were mentally shot, bowled out for 105 and crumbling on the back of Irving’s 7-42 in 22 overs.
Shiell was adamant his Lions were not a one-man band.
He pointed to the incredibly tight bowling of Chris Irving and Nathan Jones, who built pressure, and the batting of Elliott and Ross Cassidy, who got their innings off to a solid start.
“Even though Corey Irving was the obvious dominant performer, from my point of view as captain-coach of the club it was an even contribution with the bat and ball,” Shiell said.
An interesting sidebar to the Lions’ premiership was veteran Peter MacDonald, who made a valuable 29.
He has played in four flags, all in different decades: 1987-88, 1993-94, 2004-05 and now 2011-12.
GRAND FINAL SCORES:
A1 turf: Williamstown Imperials 142 (O Alsop 42 D Slattery 38 CJ Irving 7-33 CW Irving 2-39) and 105 (CJ Irving 7-42 inc hat-trick) d West Newport 232 (CJ Irving 48 T Jones 37 C Elliott 31 P MacDonald 29 M Shiell 26 O Alsop 4-70 P Hudson 2-45).
