Tea Tree Gully puts Sturt to the sword in SACA Premier Cricket grand final

POWERHOUSE Tea Tree Gully has put the icing on the cake of its SACA Premier Cricket dynasty with one of the most one-sided grand final triumphs in history.

RUNNING OF THE BULLS: Tea Tree Gully celebrates its third SACA Premier Cricket two-day premiership after beating Sturt yesterday. Picture: Simon Stanbury.

POWERHOUSE Tea Tree Gully has put the icing on the cake of its SACA Premier Cricket dynasty with one of the most one-sided grand final triumphs in history.

The experienced Bulls yesterday thumped a young Sturt side by 213 runs at Glenelg Oval to claim their third first grade two-day premiership — and second in four years — to cap off a remarkable run of success.

The win gave the Gullies their 11th major trophy in the past 10 seasons, with two two-day, three one-day and six Twenty20 titles.

“This one is particularly satisfying because we’d lost a couple of two-day grand finals in the past few years and after so much dominance we felt we deserved to win another one,’’ said captain Matt Weaver.

“That fuelled our hunger and to bowl the opposition out for 103 just after lunch on day one, you wouldn’t have dreamt of that.’’

After losing the toss and being forced to bowl, the Bulls were in charge from the second ball of the match when Sturt opener Jacob Dick was dismissed for a duck.

The Gullies passed their target on day one and powered to 316, with Tim Davey making 76 and Brad Evans an unbeaten 66. Sturt didn’t throw in the towel, attempting to force an outright result before crashing to 5/73 and conceding the task was beyond it.

Bulls paceman Ben Atkinson won the David Hookes Medal as player of the match with 3/26 in the first dig.