Western Zone was sent in to bat on a green looking No. 3 Oval but Ryan didn’t use that as an excuse after his side could only manage 105.

The bowling effort was a much more pleasing one but defending a low total was too much to aqsk as the country powerhouse reached the target with three wickets to spare.

“The wicket didn't look too bad so it was probably a good toss to lose but we just didn’t bat well enough,” Ryan said.

“We didn’t build any partnerships all day and were probably one or two partnerships away from batting out the 50 overs and if we’d done that we would have made 140-150 and that would have won the game.”

None of the top five batsmen, including Dubbo’s Marty Jeffrey, made double figures as Western slumped to 4-38 after 16 overs.

Young’s Jonte Powderly showed some fight in the middle order ut support was hard to come by, with Glenn Winsor doing much of the damage for the Novacastrians on his way to finishing with 3-8 from 5.1 overs.

Dubbo all-rounder Henry Railz chipped in with 15 but Powderly’s 30 was the only meaningful score.

“Some of the top players like Marty Jeffrey and Ryan Peacock have had a few hits but for a lot of them it was the first game of the year so it’s hard to knuckle down on a pitch doing a bit at any time, let alone your first game of the season,” Ryan said.

“You could probably put it down to that a but but we’ve got some really good top order batsmen on none of them fired so it was disappointing.”

If Western were to be any chance of winning there needed to be a strong start with the ball and that’s exactly what happened as Luke Powell tore through the Newcastle top order.

Powell, who went on to finish with 3-8 from seven overs, was near unplayable early on and Ryan had nothing but praise for the Bathurst quick.

“He bowled really well and he’s a class bowler,” he said.

“We just lacked a bit of pressure from the other end but Marty came on and tied it up nicely but there was a just a period in the middle where we didn’t take wickets.”

Jeffrey finished with 2-28 from his 10 overs to help keep his side in the match but Newcastle got home with Joe Hart (25) and Aaron Bills (21) the top-scorers.

Western meet North Coast at Lady Cutler 1 on Saturday.