Gabriel, who top scored with 46, said thick grass covering in the outfield meant fours were at a premium and he was extremely happy with the side's 181.

The Thornton skipper declared leaving eight overs to play and the bowlers backed up his plan picking up a wicket to leave Raymond Terrace at 1/15.

It was the only game to proceed on Saturday with day one of the clashes between Kurri Weston and Northern Suburbs at Kurri Central, City United and Westerns Suburbs at Robins Oval and Tenambit Morpeth and Eastern Suburbs at Morpeth Oval washed out.

"We were pretty lucky to get on. They missed the big downpour on Friday at Raymond Terrace," Gabriel said.

"The Terrace normally is hard to score at with big boundaries and slow outfield but it was even worse as the council mowed about 10 metres in from the boundary and that was it. It was very thick and lush.

"I spoke to the guys and said anything above 150 is a very good score. I said if we got 160 it would be worth 250 on any other ground and that's the way we went about it.

"We knew boundaries were not going to be easy to find, ones and twos were going to be the way to get away runs."

Gabriel said the wicket offered plenty for bowlers as well as batters once they were in.

"Generally the wicket does a bit early on there and we expected that and both teams were looking to bowl first," he said.

"We were about 4/30 and myself and Dan Willis came to the crease about then and we batted for a very long time and settled things. It was very hard going.

"They bowled very well, really tight and didn't really give us much.

"The wicket was just a nice hard wicket. If you bowled well there was something in it, but if you got yourself in it was a good wicket to bat on.

"It was just the outfield that caused the trouble with scoring

"You would smoke a drive and it would hit the grass and stop. Fours would be twos or ones, so 180 was a very good score.

"I was very happy with how we went."

Jake Moore scored 25 and there were some handy contribution from the lower order as Thornton pressed for runs in the final session.

"We got to the last session. There was 17 overs I was still out there and went with the plan that we will go hard and get to 10 overs to go and see where we are at," Gabriel said.

"We got to there and we were about 165 and I gave us another two overs so we we could have eight overs to bowl to them.

"To get to 180 plus and pick up one wicket in those eight overs it was a very good day for us."

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