Albion might have been the best team through the season, but Court House again delivered on the grand final stage to secure back to back JVJ McAdam Cups.
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Repeating their triumphant double last season, Court House won on first innings to add the two-day silverware to the one-day spoils, which they incidentally claimed by beating Albion.
Humbled in their last outing, Court House skipper Farran Lamb said leading in it would take a complete performance to get the win.
He epitomised that.
After chipping in with a valuable 20 to steady Court House’s first innings after they found themselves 2-6, Lamb took 4-31 including the valuable scalp of Albion skipper Andy Mack late on the first day, as they dismissed the minor premiers for 107 to claim first innings points.
The game was ultimately decided on that with Court House 4-32 in their second innings when Albion conceded defeat.
Fittingly out in the middle when the game was called, Lamb spoke of the satisfaction of beating them in the two finals, and defending their titles.
“It’s good to get two in a row especially against Albion. They’ve got a few there before us over the couple of years so it’s good to get one back over them, “ he said.
He was instrumental, alongside Jay Urquhart, in Court House making 142, the pair putting on 54 for the third wicket as Albion threatened to run through them like they had three weeks ago.
Urquhart went on to top-score with 41.
One of Court House’’s keys with the bat Lamb acknowledged the importance of his knock.
“His first innings was absolutely huge for us and that’s sort of what got us over the line,” he said.
Blake Small (27) and Sam Doubleday (23) further consolidated to put Court House in what Lamb thought was a winning position.
“I thought 140/150 around there would almost nearly do it for us as long as we got Andy out early, and we got Andy out and we kept going and got a few wickets regularly which was good,” he said.
Lamb got the prized scalp of Mack, and also picked up Jake Vigor to have Albion 2-24 overnight.
Zach Martin (18), Brad Jenkinson (15) and Nathan Millar (13) all made starts for Albion but no-one really fired until Luke Ryan. He made a quick 31 to give Albion a ray of hope but when he became Ben Irwin’s fourth scalp, their only chance was to bowl Court House out cheaply and then have a crack at the runs.
That didn’t look out of the realm of possibility when Court House were 3-13 after 12 overs but Lamb and Urquhart repeated what they did in the first innings.
They had a brief stumble after tea with Urquhart run out but Sam Doubleday and Lamb batted Albion into submission.
The third time in as many years the two have squared off in the two-day decider, for Albion it was a case of dejavu.
“It was a similar pattern to last years grand final. We lost wickets in clumps,” Mack said.
Every time they thought they were getting a bit of momentum it was halted by a wicket.
“We batted pretty poorly,” he said.
“We threw a lot of wickets away. There were a lot of caughts in front of wicket.”
Mack put himself in that category.
“Myself getting out was pretty ordinary. My job is to kick-start the innings,” he said.
“That had them up and about.”
He was happy with the bowling performance, although they “couldn’t quite knock them over as quickly as they’d like”.
Brad Jenkinson led the charge with 5-43, while Will Maggs grabbed 3-17.
“I’m still proud of our guys throughout the year. It’s a big effort to make seven grand finals in a row,” Mack said.
“They deserved to win. We said all year they were the better side on paper.”
