To end Tamworth’s reign on the War Veterans Cup, the competition was redesigned this year to pit the six Tamworth club sides against combined New England and Namoi sides.

Although the semi-finals will be contested by four Tamworth sides, the new concept is being praised as it clearly evened up competition.

New England took on North Tamworth on Saturday in their first match for the weekend at Tamworth’s Riverside 2.

After winning the toss and batting New England got off to a brilliant start with Brad Smith (35) and skipper Matt Baillie (18) putting on 41 for the first wicket before Baillie was caught off the bowling of Jason Stacpoole.

Smith and Michael Dawson (27) continued on with the job to advance the score to 1-76.

Once those two departed the run rate slowly began to decline.

Todd Francis scored a run a ball 31 and Lochlan Elks (27 off 27) did his best to bump the score up over 200.

Baillie said after the strong platform laid early, New England should have built a bigger total.

“Smithy was hitting the ball hard early on,” he said.

“The top five did their job, we just didn’t finish off.

“We lacked some intent in the last 10 overs.”

Openers Karl Triebe (1-16) and Adam Sweeny (1-28) picked up an early wicket each, but it was in the middle overs that North Tamworth started to get away.

“They got on top of our spinners,” Baillie said.

Elks (3-23) was introduced into the attack late and almost turned the game on its head with a devastating spell.

The North Tamworth batsmen were able to regain their composure and passed New England’s total with two overs to spare.

“We gave them a bit of a scare,” Baillie said.

New England backed up on Sunday to take on West Tamworth at Chaffey Park.

An Adam Sweeny masterclass (3-10) had West Tamworth reeling early on at 5-30 at the first drinks break.

Sam Uphill (3-31) did the majority of the damage in the middle overs to see West at 9-70.

A 26 run final wicket stand took the Tamworth side’s total up to 96.

Baillie (44) led the way with the bat, but didn’t get any support from the other end.

New England passed the total six wickets down, but losing that amount of wickets was catastrophic for their net run rate.

“We just needed to lose one or two less wickets to get through,” Baillie said.

“Losing six wickets chasing 96 just isn’t good enough.

“That is the part that really hurts, us not going through on net run rate.

“I would have liked to have seen how far this Armidale side could have gone.”

The majority of the New England players will have no time to dwell on their disappointment, with Tamworth due to travel up the New England Highway this weekend to face Armidale in the Country Cup.