The Far West Under 15's side took more than a few hits in the lead-up to their final innings in Dubbo on Friday.
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The junior side lost two players late on Thursday to illness, and then had that blow further compounded when another four were ruled out overnight, with the decimated line-up going down after a truncated innings in the NSW Youth Championship's 50-over game.
"We lost eight players to a virus that just tore through our team," Coach Greg Rummans said.
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"Two of those lads did manage to get themselves right and play, but we were down six of the original squad, fortunately we were able to call on a few of the Under 14s Far West side, and they contributed really well today."
The patchwork side was able to improve on the Under 15s scoring record from earlier in the competition, but wasn't able to stop the CAW Murray visitors from collecting enough wickets to end the innings at 25-overs, totalling at 102 runs.
"We scored at a good rate, but we just lost too many wickets, a few of the boys were still recovering during the game."
"It was good to have young kids like Jack Fuller and Fletcher Hyde to call on, they contributed really well, as did Dugald Shepard, Angus Rose our super sub, he pumped the boys up on the field a bit, so that was valuable, he got a few of the kids who were struggling a bit up."
While the CAW Murray side were able to get to 103 runs and win, Rummans wasn't too worried about the result.
"It wasn't all about results for me anyway, I'm interested in seeing how the kids grow as players over this season and this is the first three days they'll play this year," Rummans said.
"I think it's a bit of a false low, it's good for the kids to test themselves and see what they need to do going forward to improve, that's the benefit."
"My boys have played a lot of local cricket, but there's superstars in every town and when you put them together, you get to see where you stand."
The Far West Under 13's team were victorious in their efforts against CAW Murray, totalling up 158 runs to 119.