The Leagues Club Panthers and the Coro Cougars will fight for the Peter Davis One Day Cup for the second time in a row on Sunday.
The sides have developed a strong rivalry over the past few seasons with the two teams meeting in last year’s Griffith District Cricket Association two-day decider – which Leagues Club took out – as well as the one-day final.
Leagues Club captain Paul Plummer said last year’s one-day loss wasn’t the driving force for his side heading into the game but thought it would make his players hungrier.
“Any final you play in you want to win. You don’t want to lose one and you definitely don’t want to lose two in a row so I suppose, yes it does,” Plummer said.
While Leagues Club has a 3-1 record over the Cougars this season and the matches have all been tight affairs.
The team that has batted first has won each of the encounters with an average winning margin of 12.75 runs.
Coro has the biggest winning margin of 24 runs in its sole win against Leagues while the Panthers have won by margins of 11 runs, 10 runs and six runs.
Cougars captain Haydn Pasoce expected Sunday’s final to go down to the wire again and said batting would be most important.
“Every game we’ve played has been close and no doubt Sunday will be the same,” Pascoe said.
“They have a really deep bowling attack – and so do we – and the last couple of games they’ve made about 120 and we haven’t been able to chase it down.
“I think it’ll come down to whoever can put runs on the board.
“We’ve been lacking with the bat each time we play Leagues. They bowl well and field well but it comes down to us not chasing smaller targets.”
Liam Greenaway – who is away at university – will be the sole player missing for Leagues Club this weekend.
However, Plummer said he has plenty of players to choose from.
“I think we’ve been pretty lucky with a wide range of players,” Plummer said.
“We haven’t relied on one or two players, everyone’s done their job week in, week out and it’s been a massive help to us.
“Look at Dan Bozic, he won us a final two years ago with his bowling and hasn't bowled this year – it just shows the range we have.”
The final will start at 1pm on Sunday at Exies No. 1.
