TEAM LISTS: RSL and Tourist Hotel to meet in Saturday’s NDCA first grade decider

Narrabri RSL Cricket Club and Tourist Hotel Narrabri Cricket Club will meet at Collins Park in the Narrabri District Cricket Association’s first grade one day grand final on Saturday, and both teams are certainly ready to rumble.

The Jarrett Tough-captained RSL first XI entered the 2021-22 campaign as the defending champions after it claimed both the minor and major premierships last season.

RSL continued its dominance over the competition by winning six of its seven games this year and only losing once to finish on top of the table.

Tatts (four wins and three losses) and Tourist Hotel (three wins and four losses) placed second and third, respectively, and both advanced to the preliminary final.

Tourist Hotel downed Tatts by 49 runs last weekend to qualify for the big dance for the first time since 2018 and for the first time since it joined forces with Crossroads Hotel Cricket Club in season 2019-20.

Luke Meppem is the Tourist Hotel captain, who last played in a grand final in the 2016-17 campaign when he was captain of Crossroads Hotel.

He told The Courier he was pleased that he and his teammates are back in the decider this season.

“It is exciting,” Meppem said.

“It’s five years for the old Crossroads guys and four for the Tourist guys and we are finally back there.

“It’s going to be a tough ask against RSL. They’ve been the benchmark all season.

“But we have now finally got a team together that can challenge them.”

RSL will go into Saturday’s decider with eight of the 12 players from last year’s championship-winning team, including Tough, the three Brayshaw brothers (Zaac, Jake and Cooper), Tim Shields, Cody Kember, Shane Murphy and Nathan Trindall.

Promoted youngsters Will Ford and Bernard O’Connor, who were part of the club’s second grade grand final win last season, will play in the first grade decider on Saturday, as will the club’s newest signings Jake Thurston and Hadley Sevil.

Tough said that he was proud of his side for reaching the grand final for a second consecutive season.

“Getting back there was the goal,” he said.

“It was an upset season, starting after Christmas, but we did really well through the year and only lost one game, so we were happy with that.”

One major hurdle that stands in front of RSL is the fact the side has not played since February 19, following a round nine washout and then a round 10 forfeit victory before last weekend’s preliminary final game.

However, Tough said that his side would be ready to rumble when the grand final began following a good training session on Tuesday and then hopefully another later in the week.

In the other camp, Tourist Hotel will be boosted by the return of opening bowler Jordyn Mowle for the grand final.

Mowle has not played since he took three wickets back in round six and then relocated to the Sunshine Coast to live.

Meppem said that the return of Mowle would be a major boost, and that he thought the key battle in this Saturday’s decider would be between Tourist Hotel’s dangerous bowling attack and RSL’s impressive batting lineup.

“They’ve got an all-round team,” he said of RSL.

“They can all bat, they can all bowl and they’re all good in the field.

“There’s really not many weaknesses there.

“I don’t think we’ve bowled them out all year though, so I think their batting is probably going to be their strong point.

“In saying that though, now we’ve got everyone there, our bowling will be our strong point.

“Our bowling and fielding was good on Saturday (in the preliminary final win against Tatts). I’m looking for pretty much the exact same from our bowlers this weekend.”

Many eyes will be on Tourist Hotel’s opening batsman Hamish Duncan at Collins Park this Saturday.

Duncan was a member of RSL’s first grade premiership-winning team last season but made the switch to his new club in the off-season.

He led the way with the bat during his debut season for Tourist Hotel, scoring a team-best 116 runs in seven innings. That saw him rank second on the NDCA’s leading run-scorer list behind cousin and former teammate, RSL’s Cooper Brayshaw, who scored 133 runs in five innings.

Tough labelled Duncan as Tourist Hotel’s key play for Saturday’s decider and said that getting the former RSL man out early would be crucial.

The 2021-22 season grand finalists went head-to-head twice during the regular season, and the defending champions reigned supreme on both occasions.

RSL won by 77 runs in round three on January 15, after scoring 9-172 in 45 overs then bowling Tourist out for 95 in 36.5 overs.

Three weeks later in round six on February 5, RSL won by three wickets after chasing down 120 runs, seven wickets down, in 35.3 overs.

The sides were scheduled to meet again in round nine, but that match was abandoned due to rain.

RSL won last season’s grand final quite easily in March 2021, when it demolished the Western Razorbacks by eight wickets after chasing 56.

A much closer contest is expected on Saturday between Tourist Hotel and RSL, of which 16 of the 19 players used in the NDCA representative first XI’s 2021-22 MA Connolly Cup premiership-winning squad call their homes.

Team lists are as follows:

RSL – Jarrett Tough (c), Cooper Brayshaw, Jake Brayshaw, Zaac Brayshaw, Will Ford, Cody Kember, Shane Murphy, Bernard O’Connor, Hadley Sevil, Tim Shields, Jake Thurston, Nathan Trindall

Tourist Hotel – Luke Meppem (c), Aaron Baker, Matt Conroy, Hamish Duncan, Brady Jenkins, Jade Lees, Jye Manton, Jordyn Mowle, Mark Page, Jason Paull, Chris Sargent, Lachlan Woolford

The highly-anticipated decider will bring the curtains down on a season that will be remembered forever.

The 2021-22 first grade campaign was scheduled to begin on Saturday, November 1, but the four teams were forced to wait until round four on Saturday, November 22, before they were finally able to take the field.

There was only an hour of cricket played that day before more rain fell, and both matches were abandoned.

The season was eventually pushed back to a January start after Narrabri’s three turf-wicket fields were flooded in November. When it seemed like the teams would finally get back on the park, there was more disappointment as more wet weather rained on the team’s parade again on Saturday, January 8.

However, the 2021-22 season finally resumed on Saturday, January 15, and just two months later grand final day is upon us.