North Geelong sounded an ominous warning to the rest of the GCA Division 1 competition with a massive win against East Geelong.
In a battle of last season’s grand finalists, North Geelong got off to a flyer with the bat and never looked like losing.
“Against East Belmont, who we know have got a bit of a different looking side, but they’re still a huge threat with their power with the bat and ball, so to get it done pretty convincingly was nice,” North Geelong skipper Tom Mathieson said.
The Magpies won the toss and batted first with Sam Hall (61 from 49 deliveries) and Ned Cooper (48) getting them off to a bright start and Philip Visser then smacked 70 from 74 balls.
“It’s nice to have an opening pair where there’s no real pressure on Ned to kind of get going if Sam is still at the crease,” Mathieson said.
“We know he (Hall) kind of just plays his natural see ball, hit ball kind of game and his role pays off sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s the role he has. And when it does pay off, it makes Ned’s job a whole lot easier.”
Visser was elevated to No 3 in the line-up and immediately went about his innings.
“We thought we’d change it up with a really strong platform to push Phil up from four to three and get as many balls as possible,” Mathieson said.
“Credit to East, they kind of slowed it down, which made it a bit harder, but Phil is, I think, a class above what we are right now. He made it look easy.”
Jordan Rossi (33 not out off 36) and Alistair McCann (23 not out off 24) then put the finishing touches on the innings that yielded 5/262.
East Belmont never got going with the bat as paceman Dale Kerr (4/29) and left-arm spinners Bailey Sykes (1/16 off eight overs) and McCann (3/6) went about wrapping the game up early. East Belmont was bowled out for 66 inside 30 overs.
After Kerr’s initial spell, Mathieson said the Magpies took the pace off the ball with the two tweakers dominating.
“Considering that was the first couple of wickets he’s (Kerr) got this year, he was pretty down himself the first couple of weeks, but he trains hard, he’s a he’s a professional and we know what he can do with the new ball so he’s going to click sooner or later,” Mathieson said.
Sykes crossed over to Osborne Park from Grovedale this season and has made an immediate impact, taking the new ball during the power plays.
“Even his bad balls are hard to get away,” Mathieson said.
“He’s started the year really well, probably when the pressure was on him. Obviously we can only have two out in that power play and he’s changed over from a new club. He probably felt a little bit of pressure, but he’s fit in perfectly. He’s a good person, he trains hard and has a lot of good qualities.”
The only downside of Saturday’s win was a shoulder injury to Connor Hangan, who will likely miss just this week’s final one-dayer before two-day cricket takes over.
NICK Butters made 87 in South Barwon’s first win of the season. The Swans made 205 batting first and then restricted St Joseph’s to 182 with Ryan Simmonds having a huge game for Joeys with 52 and 4/44.
HIGHTON defeated St Peters, making 7/216 with contributions from Greg Willows (68) and Nathan McCoach (49 not out). Luke Ford made 48 not out for St Peters, but they fell 58 runs short with leg-spinner Fionn Neeson snaring 3/28 from 10 overs.
GROVEDALE defeated Newtown & Chilwell by six wickets. Three wickets each to Luke Guest and Rohan Smith and and unbeaten 40 from the in-form Jordan Moran got the job done.
