General News
23 March, 2022
Rebels bowl over Cats to take SWCA flag
HEYTESBURY Rebels skipper Joel Moriarty led his side to its second South West Cricket Association premiership in six years in his first grand final appearance as captain against Mortlake at the S.A Wright Oval on Saturday.
HEYTESBURY Rebels skipper Joel Moriarty led his side to its second South West Cricket Association premiership in six years in his first grand final appearance as captain against Mortlake at the S.A Wright Oval on Saturday.
The Rebels made 7/181 in the first innings, bowling the Cats out for 149 in the 45th over, and Moriarty said he couldn’t have been happier about the win.
“It’s really hard to put into words, I still remember the last one, and it’s just a fantastic feeling to be part of it,” he said.
“A lot more goes into it as captain, I guess it’s more satisfying.
“There’s a lot more hard work gone into it and it’s a lot more stressful, but that just makes it all that much sweeter at the end.”
Moriarty won the toss and decided to bat first, hoping to set a difficult total and put pressure on Mortlake’s batsmen.
“Being a grand final, it’s always harder to chase down a total,” he said.
“We probably wanted 150, 160, no less than that, over 160 it starts to get to the stage where we’d be quite happy.
“If it’s just a regular home and away game that total seems very gettable, but as soon as you put a grand final into the equation it’s all of a sudden a bit trickier.”
Heytesbury started well enough with the bat, but two patches of quick wickets gave Mortlake the ascendancy, as Lachlan Higginson took three wickets in the space of seven runs to put the Rebels at 3/38.
Moriarty (30) and Travis Brown (6) rallied to put on a partnership of 33, but both went out in quick succession to leave the side 5/76.
“It was a bit of a tricky situation at that stage, to say the least,” Moriarty said.
“They definitely got on top of us, and at five for 70-odd Mortlake were probably thinking they could roll us for low 100s, a very gettable total, but Sam (Hickey) just took that away from them.”
Combining with Chris Vogels (25) to put on 74 runs, Hickey scored quickly and confidently, making his 54 runs in 59 balls, including six fours and two sixes.
“We were looking at 150 for a long time, then Sam and China (Vogels) got us up to 175, and with Paul at the end there was some pretty good finishing to get us to 181,” Moriarty said.
“And with the bowling lineup we’ve got I was reasonably confident but knew that we still had to do the job.”
Where the Rebels batters faltered at stages, their bowlers were consistent throughout, denying Mortlake the partnership that could have changed the game.
Adam Doak (1/14) and Bayley Thompson (2/41) combined well early to dismiss both of Mortlake’s openers for 27 runs, and Paul Vogels (2/11) and Thomas Hunt (1/34) also took crucial wickets, but it was Brody Mahoney’s 4/19 at both ends of the innings that provided the most dramatic impact of the game.
Mahoney changed the face of the contest when he dismissed top order batsmen Corey Rounds (3) and Will Kain (30) in the same over, an over which started at 2/60 and finished at 4/63.
In the last ball of the 43rd over Mahoney bowled out Josh Jewell (10), and in his very next delivery at the start of the 45th he knocked over Darcy Hobbs (1), capturing Mortlake’s last two wickets to give his side the premiership.
Moriarty said in addition to the excellent performance from his bowlers, Heytesbury’s quality of fielding had been hugely important in the win.
“We fielded phenomenally, I think,” he said.
“We didn’t drop a catch, we didn’t leak any runs, we turned threes into twos, we couldn’t have been more pleased with our fielding.
“Catches win matches, and if we’d dropped a few it could have opened the door and cost us, so I’m glad we never gave them the opportunity.”
