On Saturday Cootamundra’s Albert Park was unplayable due to the inclement weather the night before. And so the Harden and Big O (Olympic Hotel) clash was moved to the synthetic pitch of Mitchell Park.

Big O won the toss and batted. The outfield was naturally very slow. Mick Buttriss and Scott Meale opened the batting for the Wattle Tree boys. The former was caught off Rob Barron for just one run and it was one for 6.

Meale went on to score a valuable 23 before Chris Etherington (Harden’s English import) clean bowled him. This was to be the first of Chris’ three wickets, two bowled and one LBW.

Darren Connell (13), Peter Louttit (30 n.o.), and Neal Heggaton (17) were the only other batsmen to attain double figures, thanks to the bowlers already mentioned as well as the main destroyer Matthew Schofield who took four wickets for just five runs off five overs. Tom O’Brien and Simon Doolan bowled extremely economically and after the 37th over, Big O had been restricted to only 94 runs all out.

Harden could see the winning post but still had two laps to go.

Captain Nathan Schofield and his brother Matthew confidently began the chase. The pair put 20 runs on the board before Matt missed one from Mick Buttriss and was clean bowled, but not before contributing a good 12 runs. Possibly playing his last season for Harden, Bill Stanley joined Nathan and they gradually, but with regular monotony, started to wear down the 94 run target. So much so, this dynamic duo polished off all the runs. Nathan Schofield with 43 not out and Bill Stanley on 40 not out.

Harden had passed Big O with the loss of just one wicket.

Game two of the three match finals series saw Harden once again having to trudge over to Coota’s Albert Park on Sunday, only to find they’d had 30ml of rain that previous evening. So with this turf wicket unplayable, the match was transferred, not to Mitchell Park, but to the village ground of Wallendbeen.