It was exciting to be back at Jaguar Oval to run off the Christmas excess, especially for the four St Bede’s College old boys in the team. It was a pleasure to welcome Joe Bradley and his St Bede’s team, coaches Ben McCord and Justin Boyle and their families and friends.

The Willows elected to bat first. We got off to a rough start being 2 for 4 in the second over. Dan Vann and Mark Reid steadied the ship and we battled to a score of 152 thanks to debutant Nigel De Maine scoring a patient and wellcompiled 32 not out. St Bede’s bowled very well and did not give away many four balls. Matthew Munro bowled an excellent spell of off-spin to return the figures of 4/12 off ten (including four maidens). He extracted some serious turn out of the wicket.

The Willows were confident that we could defend the 152 total as the wicket was quite slow and lacked bounce, therefore free flowing shots and manoeuvring the ball was difficult.

The Willows also started with a hiss and a roar, with Blake Doherty taking a wicket second ball of the St Bede’s innings. St Bede’s were not finding the chase easy given some fine bowling from Callum Curnow (5/38 off ten) and Hayden Day (0/5 off six); in particular for Hayden it must have felt like running into bowl on a fifth day wicket in Dhaka. However, the star of the day batting-wise was Matthew Boyle. He held the innings together in a very mature fashion, and hit the ball to the fence when needed and took the single when it presented itself. Matthew unfortunately perished on 89 when the scores were tied, dismissed by his cousin Curnow. I don’t think Callum will ever let him forget it. Maybe ask Matthew about the circumstances of the dismissal when you see him next...

Even with it being a low scoring game, it was a very entertaining game and played in good spirit. St Bede’s deserved to win the Clayton Cosgrove Cup. Thanks to Clayton Cosgrove, Mike Dormer, Jim Stringleman, umpires Graeme Evans and Russell Hubbard (Victoria, Australia), Rex Hayward and everyone else who assisted to make the day highly enjoyable.