By Mikayla van Loon
The cricket grand finals wrapped up over the weekend with a number of teams competing for the trophy across the Yarra Ranges.
For clubs like Kilsyth and Lilydale, even making it to the finals was an impressive achievement let alone getting into the grand final.
Across the board Kilsyth has had some great success with six teams making it to the finals and five teams making it to the grand final.
Lilydale Cricket Club was able to do something spectacular this season after the 1XI team finished second bottom last year.
Kilsyth’s 1XI team played South Warrandyte in the final of Stuart Newey Plate, while the 2XI played North Ringwood in the Pat Meehan Shield. Lilydale faced North Ringwood in the top premier division competition, the Lindsey Trollope Shield.
Lilydale fell just short, as North Ringwood chased down their total of 151 with 1.1 overs to spare. North Ringwood also toppled Kilsyth’s 2XI team after putting up a large total of 193, of which Kilsyth could only put up 137 all out in reply.
However, the Kilsyth 1XI team are premiers after bowling South Warrandyte out for only 110 runs which they chased down in only 29 overs.
Although Lilydale senior coach Mick Beyer said North Ringwood beat Lilydale in the qualifying final, the pairing was a good match up.
“The preparation this week’s been really good. Tuesday night was a good training night. You’ve got to be in it to win it, so we’re 50 per cent chance. We just have to play up to our maximum potential and give ourselves the best chance,” he said.
Kilsyth club president Shaun Goodwin said heading into the grand final weekend, he was nervous for them but also excited to see them play.
“The ones were clearly the best side all year and we’re expecting them to win but it’s a grand final and anything can happen.”
Finishing two games clear this season and having beaten South Warrandyte twice, the Kilsyth ones were the favourites but Goodwin didn’t want to put any undue pressure on them.
Both teams faced challenges in the last few years, with Kilsyth losing seven ones players four years ago and needing to rebuild, while Lilydale needed to regroup after finishing close to the bottom of the ladder.
Goodwin said it took a fair few years to get to that point, considering the last grand final won by the ones team was 30 years ago.
“We went backwards to go forwards as a club so we had to rebuild a bit to get to this stage. We’re playing a lot of juniors and then also recruited a few good players. So we’ve worked hard over the last couple of years to get to this point,” he said.
“We started getting the committee right and getting a few other things right in the background, and when the off field was alright, the on field started working for us.”
Since they finished bottom two, Lilydale also picked up some great players and really focused on developing skills for one day cricket.
Beyer said the team has shown great success in all aspects of on the field play throughout the season.
“We’ve had a number of 100 run partnerships, which has been great. We’ve also had two guys make centuries during the year and we’ve consistently had guys making 50s, which always help,” he said
“Our bowling has been very good and our fielding has gone up a level in the last few weeks.”
Some of the highlights throughout the season for Kilsyth Goodwin said were seeing the women’s team in their second year get to the top of their division, as well as seeing some junior 14-year-old players stepping into the ones team.
Goodwin said although it was a combined effort from all teams, in the ones it was players like Mitch Gregory and Josh Turner who helped guide them to the grand final.
As a young club in Lilydale, Beyer said no one took to the field on Saturday who wasn’t under 30, so he said heading into future seasons he would expect the club to remain at the top level.
