Copus finished on 71 not out and Kealy made a career-best 57 not out to lift their side from a precarious 8/153 as Norths pacemen Lincoln Mills and Cal Gabriel seemed to have wrestled control of the game.

"I came out with eight wickets down and we knew we had to stick around so it as nice to get a pretty good little partnership together," Kealy said.

"That was my biggest score, absolutely, I don't know think I've got over 20 before in first grade. It was good to finally get some runs

"That situation has probably gone against us over the past few years, we've had a few times when we've had teams down eight for and they've put on runs.

"It was nice to get on the right side of one of those."

Norths and Wests the two fierce rivals of the past decade stepped up for the challenge once again and there were plenty of top-notch contributions from both teams.

Mitchell Fisher was out without scoring bowled by Mills and the score had slumped to 2/28 when Tom Irwin was out stumped.

Enter Aaron Mahony and Shaun Hill and for not the first time this season the two middle-order batsman appeared set to take the game apart.

Skipper Mills re-introduced himself and Cal Gabriel to the attack and Gabriel struck having Mahony caught behind for 53, shortly after posting his half-century.

Mills bowled Englishman Elliott Lewis for four and shortly after tea, Gabriel had Hill caught in slips for 53.

The two Norths paceman then picked up Andrew Trappel, Riley Harrison and Luke Knight and it appeared that Norths would soon be going out to bat.

However, Copus and Kealy, who eclipsed his previous best of 25, had other plans and the two batted out the remaining 31 overs making 143 at a very healthy 4.6 runs an over.

Kealy said early break-throughs against Norths would be important next week with Mills always a danger and coming off 155 against Tenambit Morpeth in the game before Christmas.

He said there were plenty of options with the ball in this season's attack.