NSW YC Weblin Shield
12 October 2025, Seaforth Oval
After all the hard work in the pre season, the boys were pumped to play St. George on the new turf pitch at Seaforth Oval. St. George won the toss, and sent Manly in to bat on a pitch where we weren’t sure how much assistance it would give bowlers. Nate and Archie opened the batting and fought hard with great defence to keep out some good opening bowlers. Harry came in at 3 where he look solid and deadly with anything too wide getting a boundary early on in his innings. Beau came to the crease after an unlucky run out, and showed just how to put the bad balls away. Archie and Beau had a fantastic and well fought partnership of over 90 which was vital for setting a defendable target on a pitch where the ball kept very low at times. Toby was next in to support Archie, when finally for St. George they got Archie (fresh of a 10 hour flight from Fiji) in the last few overs for an excellent 92. Manly ended our innings on 181 and after a great lunch, we were refueled to defend our total.
As soon as we stepped foot on the field, it was clear the conditions were turning against us. Owen and Jacob bowled extremely tight early on where Owen cleaned up one of their openers with a fantastic ball. Ollie and Max came on next and showed St. George that this would be one tough run chase for them, with wickets to both Ollie and Max. After those wickets, St. George came up with some strong partnerships and unfortunately for Manly, our fielding was well below par and we let St. George back in the game. After some consistent bowling from Ben, Raff and Stuart; it was Ollie (also fresh from the same 10 hour flight) who was the partnership breaker grabbing his second wicket in his second spell. The danger man from St. George came to the crease and started off scoring quickly, although breaking a partnership just before, it seemed as though this would still be a fight until the end. The boys bowled tirelessly but the runs still came for St. George and they thought they had wrapped this win up with them needing 8 runs to get with 3 wickets in hand. One person who thought otherwise was Jacob, bowling one of the best balls many have ever seen
and cleaning the danger man up, sending him back to the Pavilion. The boys knew we had to bowl them out and the message was simple “Just get 2 Wickets!” and that, was just what we did. Another merciless wicket from Jacob saw us only needing 1 more poll with St. George needing 4 more runs. The batsmen blocked the ball and they ran. Nate our skipper, lead from the front fielding the ball and beating the batsmen to the stumps to run him out staying cool and calm under pressure and cancelling St. George’s bid for an away victory. Some said we “Came from the clouds” to win this one. But it was a great effort from all the boys and we look forward to playing North Shore next week.
By Stuart Turner