Western Suburbs go into their match of the round against City United at Robins Oval without their inspirational skipper Mitch Fisher.
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Fisher dragged his team to a one-wicket victory against Raymond Terrace last week scoring an unbeaten 49 and taking three wickets.
The skipper hit the winning runs with an injured Mark Copus on one leg at the non-striker's end to get last year's minor premiers home.
In contrast City United, led by a superb 90 by all-rounder Todd Francis, were super impressive in their 198-run win against Eastern Suburbs on the opening day of the 2020-21 Maitland first grade cricket season.
Fisher and Justin Lantry will miss the first week of the two-day encounter, while Copus is out for up to a month with a torn quad and Aaron Mahony is unavailable.
Sam Collison and Geoffery Keppie-Watson make their first grade debuts after strong performances in seconds last week. Keppie-Watson made 84 at the top of the innings and Collison 78 at No.3.
The Plovers will be hoping for solid starts from Tom Irwin and Shannon Threlfo and find some balance in the middle order between all-out attack and controlled aggression.
"Our batting, which I thought was going to be our major problem this year, wasn't good enough on Saturday. A few silly shots really. Not great cricket to be honest," Fisher said.
"I was very happy to get the first win of the season and move on. I thought we bowled and fielded really well. We only played five bowlers.
"The bowlers all performed very well and we only dropped one difficult catch."
Fisher said it was clear that City would again be the team to beat after their strong showing against a young Eastern Suburbs on Saturday.
City finished with 9/319 from their 50 overs with nine batsmen reaching double figures as they built their substantial innings.
At Lorn Park, Northern Suburbs all-rounder Cal Gabriel picked up where he left off last season with a strong all-round performance in Norths' six-wicket win against Kurri Weston.
Gabriel took a miserly 3-6 off eight overs as the Warriors were dismissed for 131 and followed it up with 37. He shared in a match-winning 77-run partnership with Mike Wilson who top-scored with 58.
Thornton cruised to a comfortable eight-wicket victory against Tenambit Morpeth after dismissing the Bulls for 112 and making 2/116 in reply in just 27 overs.
It's another clash of first round losers at Kurri Central between Kurri Weston and Tenambit Morpeth Bulls.
In the final match North Suburbs hosts Thornton.