City are out to regain the early season form which rocketed them into top spot on Armidale Cricket’s first grade one day ladder when they take on Guyra in a two day match this starting on Saturday.
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The side enter their third match of the two day season winless after succumbing to Hillgrove and Ex-Services in their opening two games.
Captain Kyle Taylor said his team have been working hard to hit back against a Guyra side who have found a bit of form in their recent encounters.
“Coming off a surprising defeat against Servies, all the boys are keen to get stuck back into the season but talking from personal experience, I went out there [against Servies] and it wasn't my day,” he said.
“I think some of the boys might have taken it a bit easy as well but we have to bounce back again this week against Guyra who has been playing well so it is going to be another hard game this week. They have a good, young team.
“BJ [Cameron] is leading from the front when he is bowling and they're picking up wickets which is good to see.”
While the runs didn’t come easily for City in their last two clashes, Taylor believes their work with the ball and in the field needs improvement.
“Last week and the week before we got a couple of early wickets and I think we had Servies at 3-40 and our boys thought we were going to roll them for 60 or 70 and it was going to be an easy day and we put our head down and dropped a few easy catches,” he said.
“The tailenders came in and scored 20 or 30 each and that's what knocked our confidence a bit. Our fielding at the start of the year was really good, we didn't drop a catch in the first five games and since then we have dropped a heap of catches every week and that is what let us down.
“All we need is a big performance from someone and the momentum will come and we will get a bit of that roll on that we had at the start of the season.”
Their opponents from the previous game have momentum in their favour but come up against in-form Easts.
Servies captain John Elliot expects the game to be won and lost among the bowling ranks.
“These are the two best bowling attacks in the comp, I think it will come down to that and be won and lost in the field for either side,” he said.
“We just have to take our chances early and see what comes of it.”
Easts have some of the competition’s top batsmen and Elliot said they can’t afford them to get a start.
“They have class batsmen - Todd Francis and Clarrie [Moran] is always dangerous, Dean Moore - we are aware of that, it is just up to us bowlers to be consistent,” he said.
All season Elliot has called for his side to break down the game and get the little things right – don’t lose wickets in clumps and consolidate when a batsman departs.
I am just hoping for another good performance.
- Sam Uphill
“Nothing changes from when we played City, just as long as we can compete with them in the little areas we will be right,” he said.
Easts haven’t taken the field since they beat Guyra convincingly in mid-December but finished the year on a roll.
Elliot’s counterpart, Easts’ Sam Uphill, hopes they can continue where they left off.
It will be a good game. It will be just getting back into it now and trying to keep that momentum but making sure we start off on the right foot again and don't think we can go out there and do it all again straight away.
“I am just hoping for another good performance.
“We have played a lot of really good cricket leading into Christmas, our outright win against Guyra was nice with an understrength side.”