IN the final round of the season in A grade, the Pirates hosted last season's premiers, Tathra. Having had points deducted during the week for playing an ineligible player in a previous round, Tathra was keen to make amends when they were asked to bat first.
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The Pirates' pace bowlers began in excellent fashion with Elijah Blair (1-37) shattering the Tathra opening batsman's stumps with a fast inswinger. He received great support from fellow quick, Nathan Schaefer (1-23), who was able to find a good rhythm to have the batsmen ducking and weaving before he captured the second wicket to a catch behind and the score at 2-19.
Captain Matt Corbett then joined Les Roberts-Thomson (2-40) at the bowling crease. Les captured the prize wicket of Tathra's star batsman, Adam Blacka, through some outstanding glove work from keeper Mick Stonehouse, who effected a classy stumping off the medium pacer. It was, however, skipper Corbett who made deep inroads into the Tathra batting line up. Despite still being a bit tender due to a rib injury which sidelined him last game, Matt bowled a perfect line and length to take 3-20 from 12 overs.
With the score at 5-63, all looked good for the Pirates. However, a 100 run partnership between Tathra's skipper, Ben O'Reilly (81) and Ross Jones shifted momentum in the game to Tathra, who declared their first innings closed at 8-173.
The Pirates' innings started in the worst way possible. The first two wickets fell with the score on 2 and then it just became a procession of batsmen going to and from the wicket. The destroyer for Tathra was Adam Blacka (4-21), who put on an inspiring display of fast bowling. The only Pirates' batsman to show any real resistance was Jay Preston who scored 11.
At the end of the day, Southern Eurobodalla was 6-35. The second day of this match will be all about the Pirates' restoring some pride to their batting efforts in the second innings and proving that they are worthy contenders in the upcoming finals.
B grade had a bye this weekend and are comfortably in fourth position on the ladder. This Saturday they face Bega – Angledale who are in third place. At full strength, this Pirates team is at least the equal of any other in the B grade competition and hopefully this will be shown in the last game before the finals.
Once again, a huge thank you to our supportive sponsors, Club Narooma, Club Dalmeny, Narooma IGA, Shell Narooma, Richard Busuttil and Michaels at Dalmeny.
