MACQUARIE skipper Keiran Brien took it upon himself to curb Macquarie's slow start to the Whitney Cup season, scoring 146 as his side dominated day one of their clash with CYMS at No.3 Oval.
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Brien was involved in three key partnerships as the Blues made 306 in their first innings before taking to the field and claiming four wickets late in the day.
Coming to the crease with his side 2-10, Brien and Ed Haylock (48) put on 89 for the third wicket before he combined with Jason Green (44) to take the score along to 4-191.
A mini-collapse saw Macquarie lose 3-5 in quick time but a 63-run stand between the captain and Joe Haylock (19) steadied the ship before tail-enders Angus Cusack (12) and Vinay Kapila (17) saw the Blues past 300.
"We had a bad start and I said to Ed that we needed to build a platform for 'Greeny' to come in and work off and we did that," Brien said.
"The field was lightning and there was value for shots so the key was to try and value our wicket and wait to get balls we could put away.
"We lost our way a bit in the middle stages once 'Greeny' got out but the boys dug in and got to 300, and even though I would have liked to bat out the day it panned out alright because we were able to get some key wickets late in the day."
Ben Page (2-6 off three overs) cleaned up Todd Summers (4) and Ben O'Donnell (0) in consecutive deliveries to get the ball rolling before Kapila and Sidhu Shaik each bagged late wickets to have CYMS struggling at 4-24 at the close of play.
A win would get Macquarie back into the mix after a disappointing first two rounds of the 2014/15 season.
"You can't win the comp early but you can fall well off the pace early, and after losing our first two we knew this was a key game," Brien said.
"We had a win over Rugby in the Twenty20 comp on Friday night and 'Greeny' said we needed to use that as a bit of a confidence booster.
"We're in a good position after Saturday but we have to come out next week and take the last few wickets. If we can do that quickly then we'll work out whether we're in a position to push for an outright but the key will be taking those last six wickets first.
"The one-day games start after this round and I think that style of game suits our boys better so hopefully we can get the win next week and start building from there."
