The Cricket Albury-Wodonga team heads out at the start of play to field in the Country Cup final as Robbie Jackson, right, takes it all in at the famous SCG. Pictures: FAIRFAX
CAW skipper James Tonkin leads his side out at the start of play yesterday.
CRICKET Albury-Wodonga skipper James Tonkin says his team will use yesterday’s SCG Country Cup final defeat as inspiration to go one better next year.
Tonkin, who top scored with 32 runs in CAW’s 117-run loss to Merewether, said his team had the taste of success and now wanted to sustain it next year.
“Now we’ve got the taste for it this is definately where we want to be and it’s definitely no fluke that we got here,” Tonkin said.
“The plan is to keep this going, this journey we’ve been on with rep cricket.
“We don’t want it to be a one-year thing where we went on and won the Konica Cup and made the SCG Cup final.
“The plan is to take this momentum into next year and keep the same faces around. It’s been a great ride for us all year.
“If someone told us we’d be playing in the SCG Cup final and win the Konica a few people would have laughed at us.”
Tonkin admitted he’d been hopeful of chasing 204 runs after the first innings.
In the end CAW fell well short.
“At the end of the day we were probably beaten by one class player who was probably a few notches above us,” Tonkin said.
“Those early wickets we lost cost us ... had we got a partnership happening a bit earlier it might have been a different outcome.”
Like Tonkin, CAW coach Trent Ball is keen to use the experience of yesterday’s final to build to bigger and better things.
Ball said the team had already turned its attention to Country Week this month.
“Hopefully we can win (div 4) Country Week and finish off well,” he said.
“It’s been a great experience ... but I think we got shown up a bit, with the bat especially.
“I’m just happy for the other boys that they got to play here at the SCG.
“Especially the Poms and Ashan (Ranaweera) and Robbie (Jackson) who are 38 and 37.
“Those guys are walking around just in awe of being out on the ground.
“We would have kept fielding if we could have.”