Having the captaincy thrust upon me on my late arrival, I was relieved to hear the toss had been made and the Willow were batting. The day was brilliantly fine and the pitch looked a belter even from 60 metres away.

Willows began well with Cory James and Josh Coli compiling 77 for the first wicket and when David Bond joined Josh the momentum really increased. Both ended in their nineties and along with a wee cameo from Mark Savill the Willows were well satisfied with 267/5 after 50 overs.

North Canterbury Secondary Schools chase began shakily losing a wicket early and being well restrained due to a good opening spell by Michael Hastings who ended with 3/32 from 10 overs. However, when opening batsman Matthew Brine found support from Chris Sharpe the match began to change with enormous pressure coming on the home side. Fortunately for the Willows, John Reid checked their progress with a fine spell using his pace or lack of it superbly and capturing the vital wicket of Sharpe.

From here on Brine was outstanding, farming the strike and completely dominating proceedings. North Canterbury Secondary Schools were marching towards victory. However four lower order run outs, largely due to some great outfielding by Andrew McRae, created a situation of four runs or one wicket required from the last over. Andrew McCombie was handed the responsibility of that last over, after struggling earlier in the day with his line, this was to be a true test. Four balls later and two runs gained it left two from two with Brine on strike. The fifth ball was a beauty and Brine was caught at the wicket for 123 leaving the Willows the much relieved victors. Josh Coli undoubtedly was the Willows player of the day who backed up his batting with some superb bowling. He had the rare honour of not troubling the umpires on the wide count. Quite remarkable considering his fellow bowlers had contributed 51 to the North Canterbury Secondary Schools total !!