Penola returned to winning ways in grand style by reversing the result of last summer’s Hoggies Wines Barber Shield final and finishing with a flourish against North Sportsman’s at McCorquindale Park.
When play resumed with the Tigers needing and the Eagles nine wickets for victory, both teams were in the game.
Jake Schutz and Matthew Robinson looked solid early at the crease and patiently brought scoreboard in North’s favour.
However, a burst from Lachlan Jones and Conrad Slabber transformed the game in the blink of an eye.
The pair took 4/8 in a dramatic seven-over passage of play to place all the pressure on the Tigers at 5/39.
The response from the yellow and black camp was to dig in through Justin McConnell and Mitch Lewis.
The experienced duo kept North’s hopes alive by patiently picking off the bad balls to creep the scoreboard past the halfway mark, which could have cued some Bon Jovi references in the sheds.
But once McConnell (17) fell to Jones, the Eagles swooped in for the kill.
A long chain of dot balls brought the downfall of Lewis for 21 and once the stand in skipper departed the crease, the Tigers had little left.
The tail offered little resistance as Jones bowled Penola to victory by 41 runs with the reigning premiers falling 10 runs short of triple figures.
The left-arm paceman was the hero, stepping up without the isolated Michael Waters by his side to bowl almost half of the entire innings and pick up 4/28 with strong support from Slabber.
With 35 overs to bat until hands could be shaken, Penola’s temporary captain Jack Mullan decided to have some fun.
The opener had shown snippets of deadly form during the summer, but nothing was going to stop him on Saturday.
Mullan was proactive from the get-go and was not afraid to take on and dominate the bowling.
With the sun setting the right-hander sensed a century was there for the taking and flew through the nervous minutes with duel sixes.
Mullan raised the bat for a well-deserved ton in 120 balls in the penultimate over of the day, which put the cherry on top of the Eagles’ fine performance.
The captain said the undermanned bowling attack used all its resources to score an important win after the Eagles suffered a recent lull in form.
“The boys bowled really tight because 130 is not the highest of scores, so we did well to restrict North,” he said.
“Once we got those quick few wickets, the momentum shifted our way and we could setup our field well to make them take risks.
“Being a left-armer Lachlan can swing it in, but he also got the ball to cut away, so he was sensational.”
On his own performance Mullan could sense a big score coming and just took on the bowling to bring up his maiden Barber Shield ton.
“It was nice to make a hundred,” he said.
“I got to 50 with about 10 overs left and I just thought I should ‘have a crack’ and the risk paid off.
“I have been pretty consistent this season trusting my ball watching and technique and felt confident leading into this game.
“But its good to get some momentum at the back end of the year and the boys were great supporting me after having a couple missing.”
