Eastern Suburbs co-skipper Jack Bennett says his team's confidence has sky rocketed after their gutsy win against Kurri Weston last Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Next cab off the rank is reigning premiers in a two-day game at East Maitland Park and Bennett said if the Griffins showed the same application they had a real chance of their second win of the year.
“It was great to get the monkey off the back and start the New Year in a good way,” Bennett said of his team’s first win of the 2018-19 season.
“That’s two games in a row where we’ve had a few people chip in.
“We really deserved it. We had some big talks after our outright loss to Thornton that we had to do better.
“We’ve had a bit of a change in attitude, but we’re still enjoying our cricket and having a great time together as mates.
“We were unlucky against Port not to get the full game in there as that could have been our first win.
“It was a really good way to start the new year with a win against Kurri. They are a very good team, they are up towards the top of the table for a good reason.
“Short of Jack Sylvester that was pretty much their full team.
“That was the first win in first grade for Will and Dan Stoneman and Sean Gibson and they all contributed.
“It was a real team effort and it had to be that way on a day like that.
“Hopefully we can build on that and have a strong second half of the season.”
Bennett said the only disappointment from the victory was that the other three bottom teams won as well and they didn’t move up the ladder at all.
“The teams are so even, you see the bottom four beat the top four you see how even the competition is and it’s going to be that way for the rest of the year as well,” he said.
“A few teams will have key outs in the first few weeks back from holidays and then there is Australia Day so there could be a few unexpected results over the next few weeks.”
Bennett said the key to victory was co-captain Trent Park’s 96 and four partnership of 50 plus to set their bowlers a big target to defend.
They needed it as they were without key bowlers Josh Hicks and Lucas Sargent from the sixth over against the Warriors.
“Brendan (Allen) batted really well for 40 and so did Hicksy and Dan Stoneman got 30 as well. When you get those blokes batting around Trent it helped so much in getting us a good total<’ Bennett said.
“We all wanted it so bad.
“We had eight different bowlers doing the job for us.”