Essendon Maribrynong Park claims minor premiership after tumultuous season

The season started with generational floods but Essendon Maribyrnong Park battled through and is eyeing off a premiership.

One of the most difficult seasons in Essendon Maribyrnong Park’s storied history has helped deliver the Premier Cricket One-Day minor premiership.

An incredible feat considering the club lost its home ground, Aberfeldie Park, for the first half of the season due to the devastating floods in October.

Forced to train and play at various clubs around the region until January, EMP finished seven points clear of Carlton.

A three-wicket win over Prahran, which coach George Shaw described as “one of the best victories I’ve been involved in in many a year”, secured top spot and a home semi-final against the Blues.

Despite missing several key players, the Bombers chased down Prahran’s 9-230 with an over to spare.

👀😳Aberfloody Park’s come a long way in the last few weeks. Welcome to Slogger, the newest member of the Bombers. You can find him hanging out at long on. 🐍 pic.twitter.com/NkEpdmKhgu

— EMP (@EMPLCC) November 5, 2022

“The best part, even though we lost three or four of our best players, all the young girls we’ve been grooming for First XI cricket stood up and it was one of the best victories I’ve been involved in in many a year,” he said.

“A 13-year-old, a couple of 14-year-olds and a 15-year-old stood up and were accountable and showed what they were capable of.

“It’s not just the Firsts either, the Seconds and Thirds will all play finals.

“All the players have done a fantastic job considering what took place with the floods and no home ground or training facilities.

“The resilience has been nothing short of fantastic, all they’ve wanted to do is play cricket and all the teams have finished in the four and played some super cricket.”

Skipper Makinley Blows (44 and 1-28), Alyssa Humphries (40), Katia Jomini (4-49) and Mia Gordon (26) played key roles in the final-round win, while a 29-run eighth-wicket stand between Amanpreet Kaur (16no) and Ruby Gibson (14no) sealed the result.

Blows finished the home-and-away season as the competition’s second-leading run-scorer with 433 runs at an average of 48.11, while Humphries was 11th with 252.

Jomini’s 22 wickets sees her top the wicket-takers charts with Grace Jones equal 12th with 12 wickets.

"Hopefully we'll have another 100 out of you."

Life Member 'Ginny' congratulates Makinley Blows after her 100th 1st XI match. ❤️🖤 pic.twitter.com/PufW7OHVjN

— EMP (@EMPLCC) January 30, 2023

It’s an impressive response after missing the top-four last season, winning nine of 14 games and losing just one.

EMP trained or played at Windy Hill, Merv Hughes Oval, Keilor’s Joe Brown Oval and even Princes Park, while Aberfeldie Park was under water.

“Essendon were fantastic and I’m on the committee at Footscray so that was an easy choice,” Shaw said.

“But the one that stood out was my relationship with Duncan Harrison, who was the regional development coach, and he’s the head coach at Keilor and Keilor was outstanding.

“At Keilor we were training on the centre wicket and at Footscray we were fortunate enough to have the hard wicket nets and had a bit of time on turf.

“We played all our games away initially but once our ground was up and running we played four out of the last six games at home.

“All credit to our curator, Duncan, he’s been unbelievably outstanding. What’s he’s got that ground looking like and the wicket itself – it’s got everything in it you want a good cricket pitch to be.”

Carlton is the only team to knock off the Bombers this season, claiming a comfortable six-wicket win in Round 13.

However, Shaw is confident his players can turn the tables.

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“The challenges they’ve had – not just off the ground – you only need to go back to the weekend, you’d be forgiven for giving that game up,” he said.

“We chased 230 with a group of young players, they might have only got 20 but it was damn good and had a partnership of 40 or 50.

“It’s a big game against Carlton in the Firsts, Melbourne in the Seconds and Geelong in the Seconds, they’re all challenging but the playing group is up for it.”

Essendon Maribyrnong Park will host the First XI major semi-final, travel to the Albert Ground to face Melbourne in the Second XI semi-final and Princes Park to battle Carlton in the Third XI.