Left-arm seamer Knaggs, who featured in the RSL-Kelly Cup last season, has enjoyed a meteoric ride to the RSL-Whitney Cup and on Saturday finished with the figures of 5/17 from five overs to help the Cougars defeat Rugby by 20 runs.

At one stage early on Saturday afternoon it appeared the match wasn’t going to go ahead, due to the large amount of puddles in the outfield left from Friday night’s storm, but in the end it was reduced to a 25 overs-a-side fixture starting two hours later than originally scheduled.

Batting first, CYMS posted 7/130 and then Knaggs’ haul kept Rugby to 8/110.

“It wasn’t a well-organised start and we didn’t know when we were going to play but went with the 3pm start and we prob switched on the most out of the twp teams and played some fair cricket on a deck that was reasonably true but an outfield that wasn’t quite as good so it was really pleasing to get a victory,” Cougars captain Ryan Medley said.

“It was a nice little 5-fa for Sam. He bowled quite well and I think he struck them by surprise with his variations in pace and his line and I think a lot of blokes lacked a bit of respect to him and to his credit he outsmarted them and for a young bloke that’s pleasing to see.”

For the fourth successive round, opener Brock Larance got his side off to a strong start and combined with Lewis Matthews for for a 72-run stand before the latter fell for 26.

Larance followed shortly after for 39 but Medley (22) ensured the run rate kept ticking over.

Aidan Bennewith was keeping things tight and knocked over the CYMS skipper before going on to finish with 3/41 in the Cougars total of 7/130.

The Rugby run chase began solidly before Ben Knaggs got one to jag back to rattle Chris Russo’s (17) stumps.

Glenn Shepherd had his side on track as he began to lift the run rate and he added a further 36 runs with captain Nathan Munro before the skipper became Sam Knaggs’ maiden first grade wicket.

Six runs later he had Shepherd caught in the covers as Rugby went on to lose 5-13 in the middle order.

Baye Wallace (21) showed promise but the task became too great for Rugby, who were without a host of regulars, namely Jordan Moran, James O’Brien and Dan Horrocks.

“I don’t think we’ve hit our full straps yet,” Medley said, with his own side missing Ben Strachan, Ben O’Donnell and James Nelson.

“The core blokes there have held the attitude and guys who have come up, like Sam Knaggs, have done a job well so it’s quite good. Batting wise we’ve got a couple of gears to go up.

“There’s a couple of blokes teetering on 30 and 40 and they could turn them into 70 or 80 in the next couple of weeks to give us a real good total to bowl at.”