Temuka secured the second Tweedy Cup final spot after beating Geraldine outright over the weekend, a good comeback after being 37 runs behind on the first innings. For Temuka it will be their second final against Celtic this season and a chance to redeem their loss in the one day final last weekend, while for Celtic it will be their first appearance in the final since they last won the Tweedy Cup in the 2006-2007 season.
Geraldine’s first innings lead put Temuka in a position of having to win outright to gain enough points to keep Star from pushing them back into third place, but with relations between the teams this season in the local derby strained at best, Geraldine were certainly not going to do Temuka any favours.
The rainfall during the week meant that preparation of the pitch had been limited and it wasn’t long until the ball was going through the top, but Geraldine began reasonably well to be 60-2 at one stage before a batting collapse saw them dismissed for 104 after Kevin Teahen picked up his best return of the season with the ball taking 7-43 and leaving Temuka requiring 143 for victory.
Not an unsurmountable task, but with the pitch favouring the bowlers, this match eventually went to the wire. At one stage Temuka were 80-6 despite innings of 31 from Adrian Cunningham and 21 from Johnny Geddis and their chances looked grim, but a good 8th wicket partnership between Simon Attridge with 36 not out and Willie Stone (8) kept Temuka in the game, as Attridge continued his good form from the previous weekend in his new lower order batting position.
However the tension was not abated when Stone was dismissed and No 11 Nathan McNicol joined Attridge in the middle with four runs still required. McNicol didn’t let the team down holding up his end and a jubilant Temuka side no doubt enjoyed their trip home with Simon Attridge and Kevin Teahen justifiably holding court.
Timaru put up a much better fight in their second innings against Star, despite battling the bowlers and the pitch, which while losing a lot of its pop from the previous week, managed to bring the downfall of a number of batsmen this time ‘lbw via a wormburner’. Jeremy Lane took the most advantage of the conditions finishing with 5-52, his best haul this season while Craig Hinton picked up 4-60.
Hayden Butler, the Timaru Captain lead the fightback playing a really fine knock for 79, an innings that would have easily been worth a hundred on a good deck, but in the end he got himself out caught inside the long-off boundary. Josh Smallridge chimed in towards the end with 20 and Timaru with 150 had at least made Star bat a second time.
Needing only four runs to win, the Star batsmen made hard work of it taking four overs and losing a wicket along the way, but they did finish their final match with Ashbury Park as their home ground with an outright win, and will be hoping their new grounds next season at Mountainview High School bring about equally rewarding results. This means that despite Star’s efforts with an outright win over Timaru, they remain in third and will not get the chance to improve on last season’s runners-up tag.
In the Waimate versus Celtic match, Waimate could be forgiven for thinking the trip to Timaru was a waste of time after they declared immediately after gaining first innings points in the hope that Celtic may at least make a game of it, since Celtic were in a position to manipulate who would be their final opponent.
Waimate had an outside chance of making the final if they could somehow dismiss Celtic a second time, or if Celtic made a sporting declaration and Waimate chased down the required runs, but Celtic set about batting for the rest of the day and the captains then agreed to call the match off early. In hindsight, if Celtic were not interested in making a match of it, an agreement to let Waimate bat on the previous weekend and secure the seven runs required for first innings points may have saved both teams from wasting a day.
Next weekend finals in all grades will be played over the Saturday and Sunday as another season draws to a close, and the senior final at Aorangi will be well worth a visit.
Honours Board:
K Teahen 7-43
J Lane 5-52
H Butler 79
J Sew Hoy 62*