Manchester Thirstball Tournament - 18/19 April 2009

The lions had an storming pre-season tournament, ending up runners up in the cup competition!

Saturday
With Roger (aka "The Dude") guesting for us, it was a slow start against the speeders. Neither team batted particularly well but we held our cool and eventually finished 7-2 winners. Next up was the Thunder. Again a bit of a slow start with one or two errors which resulted in the Thunder taking a 5-0 lead in the early innings. It didn't take long before the Lions found there bats and started putting runs on the board. Thunder batted well but we fielded better and eventually won 10-5.

The Spitting Camels were next on the hit list. The Lions carried on their form from the previous game and the Camels struggled in what was a bit of walk over in the end with a 25-4 win. If we thought the Camels game was a walk in the park the Mutineers were a picnic in the park. The Mutineers (Former Lions who Mutineered) were shown which was the better team with a 25-0 thumping in only 4 innings.

Sunday

The Greensox were our first game of the day and clearly the previous night drinking at Kro2 didn't help and we played really poorly. Ed was pitching and only 3 batters in took a blow to the leg and had to be subbed for the mighty Fultinator for a couple of innings. The first innings let us down and by the time we started scoring it was too little too late and we lost.

A swift team talk later and we were back playng the Thunder. Rumours had circulated the Thunder were "on fire".. this rumour was swiftly extinguished. Yes they hit big, but not big enough and the majority of the hits we easily caught. They did play well but were no match for us, a final score of 18-4 showed the Div 2 team the way out for the Cup Competition.

The 3rd game of the day was the critical one. Lions vs Dodgers. Winners make the final, losers are out.. simple! It was the closest game of the weekend but we were always one or two runs ahead the whole time. Going into the last innings we were 16-8 up and after some awesome fielding the Dodgers scored a big fat 0.. We were in the Final.

So the final was a Lions vs Greensox show down. The first couple of innings were close then the Sox had a great batting inning. Yes we made a couple of mistakes, the highlight being a 3 way meggings of Roger, Gill and Ed! We never really found our feet but enjoyed the game all the same. We got a small trophy and (more importantly) a crate of beer for our hard work.

Everyone had a brilliant weekend. Congratulations to Vic who was "Head and Shoulders" above everyone else and won Women's MVP for the tournament. Whitty had a great weekend both in terms of batting and fielding. Gill had a storming weekend with the Bat and Lee finally found his form and resumed the normal high standards. Gordon was his usual consistent self and it was great to see Mitch down for the Sunday. Oscar had a stunning debut performance on the Saturday and scored one or two huge home runs! Everyone else played really well too, Lins had some great plays (and one of the best catches we've ever seen!).

Lots of positives and we look forward to the Mavs on Wednesday!