Sawty Round Up -11

SAWTY CRICKET ROUND UP

ROUND 11

Happy New Year! And what a happy new year it is for our club. Our Community Cup Team has made the final 4 in NSW after a convincing knockout win over North Tamworth. This is a competition between all clubs in NSW that are not in the Sydney premier competition. The full report is below but I have to comment on the brilliant fielding, especially with 4 run outs. If you hadn’t realized it yet we have a few good players in the club and they are the ones passing on skills to other players and to our juniors, continually building the skills within the club. If you want to watch the last match it is available on YouTube, link below. I’ll post the Sydney game link on our team chats when I get them.

https://www.youtube.com/live/9IeoOpVjrpE?feature=shared

The team travels to Sydney this weekend. If they win the two games they are NSW champs. It will take a good team to beat them. Best of luck fellas and know that the club is behind you.

There were no junior or T20 games this round and seniors were mostly able to shrug off the Christmas cheer bellies and get a few wins. Thanks to all the players who filled in to get the teams on the paddock this week.

Thanks to Paul for organizing the Big Bash Ticket Draw for the juniors. We even had an U10 player on the field during the break. Go Immi!

If players don’t have a Sawtell Cricket Club Cap, Floppy or Bucket please sort one through your coach or see Rod or Kelly at training Tuesdays.

Senior Presentation Night is booked for Saturday 28th March at Sawtell Hotel. Junior Presentation Arvo is looking like Sunday 22nd March at Richardson Park. Please put the dates in your calendars.

Most Juniors start back on the 31st January with U14s on 4th Feb.

Good luck to all teams as they focus on enjoying cricket, with an eye on making the finals.

Michael

SPONSOR OF THE WEEK- SHORELINE FREIGHTERS

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Shoreline have supported our club with deliveries for the recent Richo Park pitch upgrade. If you need stuff moved give them a call.

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U10s

Next game 31st January

U12 Sixers

Next game 31st January

U12s Sloggers

Next game 31st January

U14s

Next game 4th February

U16s

Next game 31st January

4th Grade Gold

From the moment we opened the car door, our first thought was "Wow, it gets hot in Macksville”.

The kids were captains for the toss and we won and true to form they chose to bat first.

Hunter opened in his first game back, batting with his dad - Rod.

They had a good opening partnership with a couple of 4s & Rod's classic cover drive that went for 6 into the howling northerly!

After Hunter got out, Percy was next and he must have thought Hunter was batting a little slow as he quickly ran him out (sorry Hunter!)

Percy and his dad (Marto) put together a solid partnership with Percy dispatching a beamer for 4 in self-defence - that was epic!

Next up was Lucas and his dad Sam, who came out of retirement to help us out.

For someone who hasn’t played cricket for 20 years, Sam certainly had a knack of being able to turn two’s into well-made singles.

We finished our innings on 150, which felt pretty good in that heat, but we knew was perhaps 20 runs short.

Zac and Walter opened the bowling and Walter took an early wicket with some great keeping from Rod behind the stumps (another leg side stumping).

Lucas was up next and was on fire and got 3 wickets!

The BIG highlight was definitely the catch of the season so far!

With Lucas bowling he enticed a big drive that went straight up in the air.  Rod called out ‘keepers’ but in the wind Lucas couldn’t hear him and he only had eyes for the ball.  Like a slow motion car crash the boys collided with Rod gone flying and Lucas unmoved in his dive as he took the catch of the year.

Rod slowly dusted himself off looking like he just went three rounds with Rocky Balboa and everyone congratulating Lucas who was totally unfazed  - it totally had Dizzy Gillespie and Tugga Waugh vibes!

From there, Chris decided it was way too hot to stay out in the field.  We picked ourselves up and will live to fight again next week.

Massive thanks to Walter, Chris, Archie and Sam for filling in, and welcome back Hunter!

4th Grade Blue

4th grade Blue vs Coffs Colts. 10th Jan.

The blues kicked off the first game of the new year with a home game at Toormina against Colts.

This week we welcomed another senior debut for a junior with Lucas Joyce making his debut and guest appearance from a much more experienced campaigner, with Kiddy joining the blue ranks.

Blue won the toss and didn’t hesitate to bat first, making 162. 41 for Scotty G, 40 for Dan and 22 a piece for Hunter and Jon.

Sawty started well with the ball with Cooper and Mike getting a couple and keeping the runs down. To be honest most of the bowlers were able to get a wicket and keep the runs down with tight bowling. However, credit to the young Colts players who hung in to make a real game of it. In the end we kept our nerve to limit colts to 159 and take a valuable 6 points towards semi finals qualification in what is a competitive and close grade.

Special Thanks to Holly and Lucas who answered the call and helped us out this week to nearly get a full team on the park.

3rd Grade

With some players still a little sluggish from Christmas, Sawtell met Colts for the usual tussle.

With thoughts of Christmas presents and merriment still taking focus Sawtell quickly found themselves at 5 for 17. Most teams would then head back to thinking about Christmas next year, but not Henry, adding 43 to the total. With a solid contribution with the bat from Ransom (surprised himself) the scoreboard stopped at 97.

Colts got off to a good start but Edyn, Ransom  and Peter bowled with venom to have Colts 7 for 65 and the wheels getting wobbly. Unfortunaley Tyler from Colts was just too good and got them over the line.

Another close one with captain Charles having another sleepless night (not sure if due to cricket or birth of new grandkid…. congrats). One can sense that very soon victories will be grasped solidly by a team that can beat the top of the ladder team and a top 4 spot still for the taking.

2nd Grade

Sawtell 2s surprisingly won the toss and elected to bat first. After a small early crumble, Josh held up one end while a sick Zac Levy played some orthodox cricket shots to make another top knock just shy of 50 (45).

Vice-captain Ben De Groot scored runs at a nice pace, while James Karrash chipped in with double figures looking in promising form. AJ came in late and swung hard with his trademark baseball-style hitting, blasting a quick 24 off 18 to boost the total at the end of the innings.

We finished with 162 after 40 overs.

Denzel once again started strongly with the ball, taking two wickets in his opening spell. Josh followed up with three wickets, bowling perfect line and length outswingers that were too good for the batsmen. Toby also picked up three wickets, as he so often does.

It was a grind of a game throughout the day, but it was never in doubt Sawtell were better for longer, as we so often are at Richo. We wrapped up Diggers innings in the final over, letting them get to 150.

A little tubby after the Christmas break, but the desire to win games certainly hasn’t faded. A good win for Second Grade, keeping us firmly in the top two on the ladder.

1st Grade  

First game back in the new year against Bellingen at Richo 1. The boys trained well throughout the week with everything gearing up for a great start to the year.

Both skippers went into the toss, tails was the call and correct (a rare occasion this season for those taking note). Opposition decides to bat first, and after a fiery finish to Tedball, the boys head in to get ready to bowl.

A howling northerly at Richo. Flynn starting downwind, of course. Our bowling innings wasn’t our best, with accuracy and consistency lacking compared to where we have been all season. It was hard to set fields to at times, and our fielding efforts were extremely poor, and not even close to our usual standards with some of our key players dropping absolute bicarb sodas.

None the less, we had Bellingen all out for 136.

Onto the batting innings. We felt like it was going to be a good batting wicket, offering lots of carry and a bit of swing/seam early.

Early partnerships helped is through the innings with a lot of starts and poor shot selections with all 5 of our wickets being “caught”, wasn’t our greatest day with the bat.

But Dave Angus 35* (27) sending a few over the ropes to put the game to bed, making our largest partnership of the day with Toby Bailey, for 53runs. We ended up 5/139.

Not a great performance from the boys but we got the job done. Plenty spoken about after the game, blowing the cobwebs out after starting a new year and the risk of not taking our chances against stronger teams come finals time.

[08:22, 13/01/2026] Tyh Murphy: Flynn Taylor 2/21 off 8

Will Bailey 2/21 off 6

Dave Angus 35* (27)

Jesse Buckle 30 (36)

T20-Sawtell Blue

Next Game Thursday 29th January

T20- Sawtell Gold

Next Game Thursday 29th January

COMMUNITY CUP

Community Cup vs North Tamworth Sun 11/1

A new day, a new challenge for our first XI. Coming up against a strong team from North Tamworth.

Once again, setup the field and clubhouse for the day, into a Tedball warmup. This has been a strong winning formula.

Both skippers go into the toss, low and behold both wielding man buns.

Unfortunately home skipper losing the toss 2 days in a row, this time heads so things seem just right. Been sent in to bowl again this weekend.

Great. Redemption from the previous day. The boys seem up, keen to have a real crack in the knockout game. Warmed up well, clear plan with the ball and expectations in the field.

Once again starting with Flynn downwind, however a southerly today. Started well with the ball. Him and Richie bowling well in the power play in a partnership. The hard work was done early from the boys bowling but a team effort in the field restricting runs and making it difficult for them to score. A steady flow of wickets and 4 run outs, with a few great catches, saw them all out for 76. Great effort.

A few solid partnerships without taking many risks saw us chase down the 77 required for victory. Was still a difficult chase being a low total but the boys made sure to get there comfortably and professionally, only losing 2 wickets in the process.

We now move onto the final 4 to play at Cricket Central in Sydney.

Trent Dierick 2/11 off 4

Richie Gallichan 2/19 off 4

Tyh Murphy 23 (20)

Jesse Buckle 18* (25)

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