Met-Easts claim Toowoomba one-day cricket premiership with thrilling win over Souths Magpies
Met-Easts ended their long wait for an A-grade one-day cricket premiership with a thrilling victory over Souths Magpies in the grand final. Check out the full wrap here.
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After years of dominating the Toowoomba two-day cricket competition, Met-Easts has finally transferred its form into the shorter format as it won the A-grade one-day grand final on Sunday afternoon.
The Trojans held on to claim a 32-run win over Souths after a late fightback from Magpies captain Rohan Drummond and Deshaja Yukthi set up a thrilling finale.
However, the class of Met-Easts shone through as it claimed the final three wickets for the loss of just 10 runs to bowl Souths out for 172, after scoring 204 runs in the first innings.
“It is fantastic, we have a great set of blokes here, there is a lot of talent in this team and it is good to finally get them to show it in the white-ball format,” Met-Easts captain Ben Brocherie said.
“It was pretty nerve-racking in the second half of that.
“They (Souths) put up a good fight and took it right to the death and they had us all on our heels.
“They bat very deep, they have a lot of hitters that go right till the end so you are never safe no matter how many wickets you have got.
“It could have gone either way so we are happy to get away with it.”
With the Trojans seemingly cruising towards victory, an explosive eighth-wicket partnership threatened to derail the celebrations for Met-Easts, however, Brocherie ensured his side remained calm in the heat of the battle.
“We had to remember that we were on top and everyone needed to get up and get around each other,” he said.
“We knew they would get a few away but as long as we were playing together and as a team and an entire unit, then we would be able to pull through.”
With the semi-finals taking place on Saturday, before the grand final on Sunday, the squad depth of Met-Easts was on full display as four different players chipped in with half centuries across the two days of action.
“It has been a real team effort from everyone to get to this stage and I am just really proud of the boys,” Brocherie said.
“It was a real mixed bag of who performed for us, there were a few on Saturday and the other ones just really pulled through in the grand final when we needed to and got us over the line, which is fantastic.”
Brocherie reserved special praise for Daniel Pollock and Jacob Fry, who have been pivotal to the success of the Trojans this season.
“I think Daniel Pollock has been very handy with the bat on numerous stages and Jacob Fry has come up from Reserve grade and just cemented a spot in this side by taking wickets every game and controlling the innings,” he said.
With Met-Easts taking home the first competition of the season, Brocherie is hopeful it can spur his side on for the two-day competition after the Christmas break, where his side is gunning for a historic three-peat.
“I think it will be a big confidence booster for the boys, more the fact that we are all playing together and we are all on the same level,” he said.
“Going into two-day cricket, you really need that good group of boys with a good high mentality to get through it because they are big and long days.”
Elsewhere, Souths defeated Met-Easts by 20 runs in the Reserve grade final with the Trojans losing their final eight wickets for just 41 runs to be bowled out for 100.
Meanwhile, Met-Easts White cruised to a seven-wicket win over Northern Brothers Diggers in B-grade with opener Hugh Mansfield leading the way with an unbeaten 63 runs off 97 balls.
In the C-grade grand final, it was all one-way traffic as Northern Brothers Diggers Gold claimed an emphatic 58-run win over Souths Crows.
Action from finals:
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