As we gear up for Sponsors & Past Players Day on Saturday, 2 December 2023, we’re going to take a look back at some of the Premiership sides who are celebrating milestones this season.
Up first, we have the 30 year anniversary of the 1993/94 A Grade Premiership side, which was the start of a new era of dominance in A Grade for the Echidnas, who would go on to play in 9 A Grade Grand Finals and win 5 Premierships over a 15 season stretch from 1993/94 to 2007/08.
A couple of club stalwarts debuted during the 1993/94 season, Neil “Nugget” Hein and Wayne “Willow” Willis.
Nugget dominated the bowling attack, collecting a whopping 38 wickets @ 10.89 to finish more than 20 wickets ahead of his next teammate and he also picked up an 11 wicket haul in just his second match at the club (7/17 & 4/28).
Willow had just as big an impact, winning the Batting Aggregate & Average in a much tighter contest as he finished with 445 runs @ 89.00 to narrowly beat out Darren “Raz” Rasmussen (438 runs @ 43.80) whilst skipper, Andrew “Ned” Kleemann (336 runs @ 28.00) and Steve France (293 runs @ 36.00) also had excellent seasons. Four other players scored over 140 runs for the season with all but one of them averaging 19 or better in what was undoubtedly a dominant batting order.
That season, the A Grade was contested by 10 sides across 11 rounds, with 7 sides winning at least five matches save for a luckless Finniss (0-10 with a draw), Macclesfield (3-7-1) & a plucky Milang (3-8 but they knocked off Callington in the final round to give Callington just their second loss of the season). Callington appear to have been the minor premiers with a 7-2-1-1 record, with the other finalists being Wistow (8-3), Strathalbyn (8-2-1) & Langhorne Creek (6-3-1-1).
Callington would win their Semi Final against the Creek at Milang Oval in a high scoring shootout after racking up 9/265 from their 70 overs only to see the Creek fall just short, bowled out for 251 with 5 balls left. The Echidnas had an easier path, bowling Strath out for just 145 on the Cally Turf with Nugget and David Wittkowsky both collecting 3 wickets each, before chasing the total down in 46 overs for the loss of 4 wickets, led by Raz (51*), Willow (31) & Wayne “Myla” Miels (31*).
In the Grand Final, the Echidnas batted first and things got off to an auspicious start with skipper Ned run out for 0. Whilst several other players reached double figures, the highlight of the Wistow innings was a third wicket partnership between Raz (50) & Willow (73) before the Echidnas were bowled out 194 late in their innings, with the pick of the Cobras’ bowlers being G. Hams who collected 5/54.
In reply, the Cobras’ top 3 were dismissed for a combined total of just 4 runs and whilst P. Medhurst batting at 4 made 44, the damage had been done with Callington ultimately bowled out for 120. Nugget did the damage early with 3 wickets whilst Peter Scott, who played for Callington for a number of years both before and after a 3 season stint at the Hill, ran through the Cobras’ lower order to finish with 4/31 (interestingly, Peter took just 8 wickets for the season but 6 of them came in the SF & GF!).
We would love to see the premiership players up at the Hill next Saturday for Sponsors & Past Players Day – David Wittkowsky, Wayne Oats, Neil Hein, Gary Duns, Darren Razmussen, Jim Elmslie, Craig Paech, Damien Nettle, Andrew Kleemann, Wayne Miels, Peter Scott & Steve France.
