Northcote breaks Premier Cricket finals drought with bounce back season
Northcote knows it will take an almighty performance to knock off minor premier Melbourne University in their qualifying final clash but Dragons coach Steve Taylor says his team his nothing to lose.
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Northcote coach Steve Taylor says his team has nothing to lose ahead of a Premier Cricket qualifying final against minor premier Melbourne University.
The Dragons’ fourth-placed finish snapped a two-season finals drought and sets up a mouth-watering clash at University Oval with a preliminary final berth up for grabs.
The Students scored an 87-run one-day victory when the pair met just three weeks ago and Taylor said his team took some valuable lessons from that defeat.
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“We played them in (Round 16) and they beat us, they’ve been top of the table all year and been the benchmark of the competition,” Taylor said.
“We learnt plenty from that game and we’ll go in, have a red-hot crack, and see what happens.
“Their batting has been a pillar of strength this year.
“It will be a good wicket at Melbourne Uni, it always is, so a huge effort from our bowling group will be required.
“Our batsmen will have to stand up as well, if we bat first, and put a total on the board that our bowlers can defend.”
The toss will be pivotal with a cool and cloudy day expected on Saturday, runs will be at a premium.
Melbourne University has three batsman in the competition’s top-six run-scorers this season – Alex Gregory (622 runs), Andrej Yaksender (607) and Fergus McKenna (605) – while Josh Sundberg is the leading Dragon with 516 runs.
The Students and Northcote have been the surprise packets of the campaign, climbing from outside the top eight in 2018-19 to top four this season.
Taylor was proud of his players response’ to the adversity of last season.
“The way we’ve bounced back as a playing group, the performances we’ve been able to put on the park is a fairer reflection of the group,” he said.
“I don’t know where we finished last year, nothing went right, so I didn’t worry about looking.
“We’ve been playing some good cricket post-Christmas and it’s nice to put it all together going into a tough and fierce finals campaign.
“That’s the good thing about the revamped finals format … to work so hard throughout the year, the top-four finish is really valuable.”
The Dragons (304) warmed up for finals with a 168-run first-innings win over Kingston Hawthorn (136).
Enforcing the follow on, Northcote came up two wickets short of a second outright victory after reducing the home team to 8-105 in its second dig.
Max O’Sullivan (80), skipper Blayde Baker (75 not out) and Sundberg (59) all made half-centuries, while Joe Medew-Ewen finished with match figures of 7-77.