“It’s good to be on the right side of one for a change”: Tourist Hotel snaps preliminary final losing streak

Tourist Hotel Narrabri Cricket Club’s first XI put two years of pain in the past on Saturday when it beat Tatts in Narrabri District Cricket Association’s 2021-22 first grade one day campaign preliminary final.

The Tourist Hotel men reached the playoff round in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns but were defeated by the Western Razorbacks on both occasions. Those two matches both came down to the final ball, and the Wee Waa-based club prevailed and qualified for the grand final on both occasions.

However, Tourist Hotel ensured that history would not repeat itself this season by scoring a dominant victory against Tatts at Collins Park to qualify for the grand final, which it will play against RSL this Saturday.

Tatts and Tourist had met a week before their knockout encounter in the 10th and final round of the regular season. Tatts won that contest by two wickets after chasing down the 117-run total set by the Tourist men.

On Saturday, Tourist Hotel batted first in the preliminary final after Luke Meppem won the toss. His team scored 137 runs before losing its final wicket in the 44th over.

However, this time, Tatts was unable to get near the required total as it was knocked over for just 88 runs in 37.3 overs to fall 50 runs short of victory.

Meppem now turns his attention to his first grand final appearance since he won the first grade premiership with Crossroads Hotel in 2017.

He told The Courier that he and his teammates were relieved to finally get the job done in the preliminary final.

“I didn’t think it’d ever happen,” he said of a preliminary final victory.

“It’s really good to finally win one, to be honest.

“We’ve been so close the last two years. They were both really close games, the ones that we lost, down to the last ball and down to the last wicket.

“It’s good to be on the right side of one for a change.

“Looking forward to next week now.

“We might be getting Jordy Mowle back (for the grand final), but other than that, our team will stay the same as it was today.”

Tourist Hotel identified 140 as a total that would be difficult for the chasing side to reach on Saturday.

It was in danger of falling much shorter than that, with the score at 6-70 after 25 overs in the first innings, but one key partnership got Tourist Hotel back in the contest.

“We knew that 140 was a very good score on number one (Collins Park) at the moment,” Meppem said.

“The wicket is a bit hard to score off, and if you set good fields, the other team can’t hit it through them.

“With our handy bowling attack, too, we thought 140 was plenty and we got to 137.

“We were in a bit of strife early, but a good partnership between Sarge (Chris Sargent) and Wooly (Lachlan Woolford) swung momentum back in our favour.

“Then we went out and fielded and bowled well too.

“We took a few screamers today.”

Tourist Hotel went into Saturday’s preliminary final with a deep batting lineup and reaped the rewards after three lower-order batsmen were able to guide the side to a defendable total.

That trio included Woolford (26), Sargent (29) and Hayne (13*), who batted at number seven, eight and nine, respectively.

Tourist Hotel opener Aaron Baker (13) and first drop Matt Conroy (19) both made starts earlier in the day.

But the rest of Tourist Hotel’s top six contributed just 10 runs between the four of them as their side limped to 6-70 after 25 overs.

Sargent and Woolford then dug their heels in and combined for a crucial 42-run partnership to get the Tourist Hotel total into triple figures.

Woolford eventually departed in the 38th over as the score became 7-112, but Tourist managed to score 25 more runs to reach 137 before it lost its final wicket in the 44th over.

That 10th wicket was claimed by Gregg Gray, who took a game-best 3-24 from seven overs.

His teammates Rod Kirk (2-16) and Sid Harvey (2-35) took two wickets each after both bowled nine overs and Harvey also chipped in with a run out.

Tatts’ other two wicket-takers were Eben Botha (1-21 from nine overs) and Jonty Schwager (1-32 from eight overs).

After setting a defendable total in the first innings of the match, Tourist Hotel came out all guns blazing in the second.

Its bowlers battled to keep Tatts’ run rate below the initially-required three an over for the entire innings and the team was also impressive in the field.

Mark Page and Brady Jenkins set the standard with two catch of the year contenders, and gloveman Woolford was electric as he chipped in with three stumpings.

Jye Manton got the ball rolling in the second over of the innings when he dismissed Brendon Ward (0).

Manton only conceded one run from his first over before producing back-to-back maidens and then delivering with another wicket in his fourth over when he dismissed Hugh Lennon (3) to make the score 2-15 after eight.

Those wickets left Harvey and Kirk at the crease. After combining for four of their side’s wickets earlier in the day, the duo put on a 40-run third-wicket partnership that looked unbreakable at times.

However, Matt Conroy was up to that challenge as Tourist Hotel’s first XI leading wicket-taker knocked over Harvey in the 22nd over, who was stumped for a game-best 30 runs by Woolford.

That wicket made the score 3-55 and kick-started a Tatts collapse as Tourist Hotel took 8-33 in 17 overs to get the job done.

Kirk (23) lost five partners while he was at the crease. His patient innings finally came to an end in the Jade Lees-bowled 35th over when he was stumped by Woolford.

He was the only other Tatts batsman to reach double figures after six of Tatts’ bottom seven fell cheaply and Jakeb Nipperess was left stranded on an unbeaten seven.

Conroy was Tourist Hotel’s best with the ball once again after he finished the match with 3-28 from nine overs.

His fellow spin bowler Sargent was outstanding with the ball during his nine-over spell, during which he took 2-9 and bowled four maidens.

Tourist’s opening bowlers Manton (2-9 from six overs) and Hamish Duncan (0-25 from nine overs) were both economical, while Jade Lees (1-10 off four overs) and Mark Page (2-7 off 1.3 overs) combined for the final three scalps.