Season 1994/95 - at last - Provincial Cricket

It took 20 years to do it - but we were finally there ! - Provincial Cricket - the Club’s ambition. Going into the Season we had retained the services of Rob Bedford as Captain and the playing services of Peter Bedford and Paul Hartle. Brian McCue, because of working committments had to withdraw from the Coaching position and Stephen Johnson filled the breach. At the start of the Season, only one of last Season’s 1st XI team was missing from the Club - Neil Kent - who had decided to spread his wings overseas.

Prior to the start of the Season the Club made some administrative changes with Gordon McLeod relinquishing the Secreatary’s position for the Vice Presidency and Jeff Roach took over Gordon’s role, and Roy Watts returned to the Treasurer’s post. The Club’s Executive Committee was President Alan Splatt
Vice President Gordon McLeod
Secretary Jeff Roach
Treasurer Roy Watts
Committee Peter Worland, Cameron Park, Steve Wisniewski, Peter Watson and Bob Hough.

Throughout the Season Mal Ritchie, Clarrie Swan and Peter Ridgway were seconded to assist in the running of the Club.

New players to the Club were Lee Cheah, Tim Egan, Geoff Laughlin, Kim Murphy, Peter Roberts and Ian Stevenson while Grant Kellerman, Jamie Ferguson and Tony Smith resumed playing after a time away. Players who departed were Peter Addicoat (439 runs at 27.44%), Peter Aquino, Paul Barton,John Brown, Paul Campbell, Ben Coates who was trying his luck at Frankston Peninsula (although he still played for the Under 16’s), John Forrest who also went to Frankston Peninsula, Andy Gilroy-Scott, Steve Griffin (97 games, 1487 runs at 23.98% & 236 wickets at 14.69%), Ty Hanley, Grant Hateley, Paul Henderson, Bob Hindle (55 games & 1269 runs [HS : 104] at 24.40%), Alby Howie, Mal & Mick Humphrey, Brendan Kelly, James Khan, Barry Mills, Stuart McLeod (92 games & 2593 runs [HS : 155] at 30.51%), Armin Otto, Dave Phillips (147 games, 2841 runs [HS : 107] at 19.59% & 132 wickets at 22.67%), Greg Pretty, Luke Ritchie, Adrian Rodrigues, Craig Ryan, Bob Smith, Matthew Swift, Jonathon Tait, Ian Thomas (64 games, 537 runs & 54 wickets at 19.74%) and Jarrod Upton.

Juniors who played with the seniors from time to time were Leigh Batey, Michael Burke, Matthew Burr, Dale Chubb, Stephen Clark, Sam Coates, Adam Collins, Dave Collins, Mark De Kleuver, Jarrod De Zilva, Adam Fenton, Rob French, Mark Heller, Craig Hill, Grant Jefferies, Shane McDonald, Josh Murphy, Nathan Robert, Daniel Simmons, Joel Stevenson, Luke Van Raay, Nathan Walshe, Peter Wilkinson, Chad Wilson and Michael Wilson.

The captains were Rob Bedford (1sts), Craig Small (2nds), Gordon McLeod (3rds), Richard Hall (4ths), Jim Chubb (5ths), Marty Kelly (6ths) and Clarrie Swan (7ths).

On a serious note Clarrie Swan had been taken to hospital during this match and had to undergo tests. It was thought that Clarrie would be away from the Club for some time but this finely-tuned athlete had other ideas. It was probably fortunate that the 7ths had a few games off otherwise Clarrie would have declared himself available. However the two month break was in his favour. Clarrie came back with a vengeance and in his first visit to the crease scored 20 not out and ran three 3’s - as Sam Newman would say : “You idiot!”.

Semi-Finals
Cuey had been included in the 1sts for his first game of the Season much to the dismay of Heatherhill and he certainly put the wind up them with his bowling. We did bowl first - had them in trouble at 2/30, struggled then got on top at 6/164 only to see their tail punish the bowling and they finished at 7/246. The second day’s play was terrific and the game came down to the last over - fancy bowling a short ball outside leg stump to a renown hooker - Hamilton-Smith tried to bounce Dagga and saw the ball sail well over the boundary - that was the ball game, and Long Island was in the Provincial Grand Final in its first Season in that Grade.

Long Island 9/250 (P.Hartle 24, R.Bedford 45, G.Vose 91, S.Johnson 24, N.Kent 31) defeated Heatherhill 7/246 (P.Hartle 2/54, B.McCue 3/71)

The 2nds sent Tyabb in and at 2/10 it looked a good decision but excellent batting (two century partnerships) helped take the Yabbies to 272. Our effort was fantastic particularly by Stuart Doolan, Kevin Ryan and Digger but we fell short by 4 runs.

Long Island 268 (S.Doolan 89, K.Ryan 42, D.Watts 68, K.McCluskey 20no) lost to Tyabb 272 (K.McCluskey 4/60, G.Park 2/63)

The 3rds had an easy win against Langwarrin dismissing them for 137 with Gary Measham, Stuart Swift and Nathan Ross doing the damage, then knocking off the required total with minimal trouble.

Long Island 4/142 (G.Measham 59) defeated Langwarrin 137 (G.Measham 3/27, S.Swift 3/25, N.Ross 2/25)

The 4ths set this up with a tremendous batting performance on Day 1 when we amassed 9/373 - David Worland was tremendous - and all of the batsmen showed terrific fight. The bowling was tight and with good fielding the 4ths breezed into the Grand Final.

Long Island 9/373 (R.Hall 21, Lindsay Batey 34, D.Worland 151, S.Wisniewski 20, J.Newman 45, M.Godfrey 43)
defeated Langwarrin 111 (P.Worland 3/17, D.Des Barres 3/17, L.Hall 2/23)

The 6ths came up against the strong Heatherhill team and found their total of 274 too many - Watto used all of his experience both with ball and bat and Roy and Leigh Batey also did well in our innings - but they were just too good for us.

Long Island 133 (R.Watts 24, Leigh Batey 39, P.Watson 32) lost to Heatherhill 5/274 (P.Watson 4/91)

The 7ths played tremendously to defeat Baxter and move into the Grand Final with Chappie giving nothing away and Clarrie and Jamie Ferguson both bowling well while with the bat Jeff Roach played his best innings of the Season.

Long Island 155 (J.Roach 42, D.Chubb 28) & 2/82 (A.Fenton 42no)
defeated Baxter 85 (B.Chapman 4/22, J.Ferguson 2/27, C.Swan 3/25) & 2/149

GRAND FINALS
The 7ths batted first and lost their way right from the start when Ben Meyers gave our batsmen no respite with 7/40 off 26 overs. They crawled their way to our total then past it and kept batting and batting - with no real intention of scoring fast - they scored 9/249 off 120 overs.

The 4ths met the strong Mt Martha team and batted first getting a good start and continuing the good effort to a total score of 222. They scored 117 and just couldn’t cope with Kieran Worland - so much so that they wanted to play the game out to its conclusion.

The 3rds lost this one from a position of strength - we batted first but at 5/75 we were in deep trouble however our latter batsmen fought hard for a score of 175. Their start was not much better and just before tea the score was 7/72 but after tea the experience of Ken Lonie saw Heatherhill take the points and the Premiership.

The 1sts batted first and we never got the momentum going, losing 2/19 then recovering a little only to lose our last 4 wickets for 13. Doc Vose batted well but it was pretty much a lonely fight. We bowled and fielded extremely well but an 82-run partnership for the 5th wicket put Mornington into the box seat. They managed 179 and were in control of the game. We threw everything at them on the final day but the odds were too great and the game was called off with Mornington 20-odd runs short of outright victory.

Player of the Season was Paul Hartle, Jim Chubb and Geoff Palmer shared the President’s Trophy, Roy Watts was Best Clubman, Marty Kelly the Gordon McLeod Medal and Gary Measham took out the Peter Worland Award as the Best Under 21 player in the Club.

During the Season the Club’s leading performers were -

Runs
Graham Vose 606
Richard Hall 574
Chris Burke 572
David Worland 567
Robert Bedford 536
Trevor Ryan 486
Marty Kelly 476
Lindsay Batey 456
Peter Ridgway 455
Craig Small 443
Peter Conell 430
Daniel Watts 427
Roy Watts 426
Gary Measham 375
Sam Cooper 351
Jim Chubb 340
Stephen Johnson 329
Joel Newman 329
Baden McWilliams 324
Doug Van Raay 315
Gary Strong 314
Stuart Doolan 310
Michael Godfrey 301
Steve Wisniewski 298
Geoff Laughlin 297
Mark Sargant 285
Cameron Park 284
Paul Hartle 282
Bob Hough 266
Geoff Palmer 264

Wickets
Peter Watson 38
Luke Van Raay 36
Paul Hartle 34
Kieran McCluskey 27
Stuart Swift 27
Damien Des Barres 26
Geoff Palmer 25
Phil D’Agostino 23
Nathan Ross 22
Peter Wilkinson 21
Ryan Lee 20
Kieran Worland 20
Peter Worland 20

Catches/Run Outs
Trevor Johnston 21
Robert Bedford 20
Peter Bedford 17
Joel Newman 17
Peter Ridgway 15
Kevin Ryan 15
Sam Coates 14
Jeff Roach 12
Trevor Ryan 11
Gerard Rabot 10

Juniors

The Under 16’s were very well represented with David Collins (329 runs and 13 wickets), Josh Murphy (280 runs), Leigh Batey (184 runs), Stuart Swift (152 runs & 14 wickets), Jason Stanley (175 runs), Ben Coates (158 runs & 14 wickets), Matt Burr (10 wickets) and Joel Stevenson (8 wickets) the leading performers in the East Grade while the Central team was well served by Mark Heller (262 runs & 22 wickets), Nathan Walshe (230 runs & 9 wickets), Brent Jenkin (225 runs), Adam Dureau (126 runs), Adam Fenton (112 runs) and Luke Byrne (16 wickets).

Under 16 East Grand Final - Long Island v Frankston East
We got away to a bad start with Leigh Batey dismissed early but Josh Murphy and Ben Coates put on 50 before they both went but the mid-innings efforts by Stuart Swift and Jason Stanley were great and we recovered for a fine total of 174. Frankston East were never allowed to get the ascendancy with Ben Coates in fantastic form and Matt Burr ending proceedings abruptly, and it was a fine win to this very good side.

The Under 14’s also had good performers in Michael Burke (377 runs), Luke Van Raay (291 runs & 20 wickets), Jarod De Zilva (267 runs & 22 wickets), Sam Coates (212 runs), Adam Poole (12 wickets) and Stephen Clarke (12 wickets). For the Central team Adam Strong (178 runs)), Adrian Campbell (162 runs & 11 wickets), Lukas Murphy (169 runs), Myles Howie (117 runs), Luke Fossett (13 wickets) and Corey Smith (10 wickets) were good performers.

Under 14 East Grand Final - Long Island v Pines
The Long Island team put this game out of reach of the Pines boys in 23 overs - the number of overs needed to dismiss them - Luke Van Raay was sensational (6/8 off 7 overs), then with Michael Burke and Luke unstoppable with the bat, we had rattled up 2/149 in only 21 overs when sanity prevailed and the game was brought to a halt.

In the Under 12’s we fielded over 40 players. Leading players were Paul Connolly (128 runs & 7 wickets), Ben Gook (144 runs & 7 wickets), Luke Mirabella (121 runs), Andrew Rath (94 runs), Chris Barrett (10 wickets), Craig Whyte (10 wickets), Stephen Boo Hocking (7 wickets) and Justin Kane (7 wickets).