Maitland won the toss and sent Newcastle in to bat, with skipper Brad Bannister opening the bowling with spinner Nick Bower – a decision which had an immediate effect.

Bower took a wicket with his first ball at Robins Oval and started a collapse of the Newcastle batting line-up that had it on an embarrassing 7-31 at one stage.

But the Newcastle tail wagged, with Craig Plain blasting a quick fire 24 until the team was all out for 89.

Tenambit Morpeth opening bowler Danny Johnson was the best with the ball for Maitland (4-29 off eight overs), while Bower finished with figures of 3-24.

Western Suburbs right-arm medium pace bowler Dustin McGrath had 2-25 off 4.4 overs and Andrew Parkinson had a direct hit run out.

Disappointingly for the Newcastle team, four of its players failed to get off the mark.

When Maitland went into bat its openers Nathan Pearson and Andrew Vickery had a quick run chase on their minds.

But Pearson was out early for two and Vickery failed to convert his score of 17 into a significant total.

When Sam Jenkinson and Andrew Mullard both went for 10, Maitland was looking a little bit shaky.

But the Northern Suburbs connection of Bannister and Terry Humphreys steadied the ship and guided Maitland to a six-wicket victory in the 17th over.

Bannister said he was pleased with his team’s effort and consistency despite starting with a different 11 in all of their matches.

“We showed our class today,” Bannister said.

“There are a lot of good players in the competition and even with all the blokes we had out, we still haven’t had a score over 100 against us.

“We’ve probably used around 25 players over the three representative games we’ve played this season.”

Newcastle was undefeated in both the SCG Cup and the John Bull Shield before yesterday, after wins over Singleton and Cessnock.

Maitland is now one win away from a spot at the SCG Country Cup carnival in Orange in December.