By Tara Murray
Kealba-Green Gully’s hoping it has hit a turning point of its North West Metropolitan Cricket Association George Luscombe Shield season.
The Cougars haven’t had the start to the season they wanted with a number of close losses and weather ending other games that they were had been in good spots.
Captain-coach Evan Long said they hadn’t been that far away with luck not going their way.
“We’ve been close enough with not getting the results,” he said. “The weather hasn’t helped either.
“We made a really good score against Aintree and the second day got washed out. Others we’ve lost by five to 10 runs which is frustrating.”
It was a similar case in the first of the Cougars one-dayers last weekend.
They lost to the Chargers by 14 runs.
The tide turned on Sunday in other one-dayer as they came away with a close win against Tarneit Central.
“It was good after falling just short on the Saturday,” Long said. “We batted first and Anthony Fawcus did what we got him across to do in the one-dayers.
“By his own admission he hasn’t had the start that he was after. He took his chance. Daniel Patrick batted with him for much of it and they made three quarters of our score.”
Having made 219, the Cougars kept Tarneit Central to 8-207 in an almost identical margin to the previous day.
Long said the bowlers backed up what the batters had done to get the win.
The win was the Cougars second of the season and moves the side up to sixth on the ladder.
They were six points outside the top four heading into the weekend’s match.
Long hopes it’s the start of things to come for the side.
“Hopefully a season defining momentum and we can get a bit of momentum,” he said.
“Hopefully we’ll have a bit more confidence and it’ll take us to the next part of the season and we can push into the top four.”
The Cougars face Aberfeldie St Johns across the next two Saturdays.
Long said they were hoping to go into the break on a winning note.
“They are below us on the ladder,” he said. “They were unlucky not to beat Gladstone Park, which is in the top four.
“Anyone can beat any one. The next couple of weeks we’ll want to be looking forward rather than back.”
