Things went exactly according to plan for Mat Skinner's Dubbo side at home on Sunday.
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There was never likely to be any surprises at home for the Dubbo Men's Western Premier League team ahead of their clash with the battling Cowra side in the last regular round of the regional representative competition before the finals, but Skinner and the hometown side put a rubber stamp on their finals berth with a win on the weekend.
Skinner, supplemented by fellow Newtown team-mates Lee Price and brother Steve Skinner, left nothing to chance and kept Cowra brutally constrained to a total of 39 runs that had to be earned the hard way with 10 lost wickets.
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Dubbo showed little room for error and no mercy during their own turn with the willow, going 10/254 in a run-heavy effort that has them fired up in preparation for a much wanted shot at redemption against Bathurst.
"I'm feeling really confident about it all, our bowling unit is really clicking at the moment, in our last few performances we've really bowled where we wanted to, set our plans and taken plenty of poles, our bowlers are really performing the way we want them to right now, so it's good," Skinner said.
"We're really looking forward to it, we're very hungry to play Bathurst again, I said it a couple of times before in the year, but we really do not like losing at home, so hopefully we can move forward and rock and roll them at home this time."
In the lead up to the match-up, Skinner made sure to emphasise the threat posed by any team, even the down and out Cowra side, who sparked a major upset in their last time out against Orange and secured their first win in nearly two years.
"I told our blokes 'just keep it simple', I hate underestimating teams, no matter how they're travelling in the year, when you go in underestimating teams, that's exactly where you lose, I just told everybody to do their jobs simply, keep it nice and clean and do the job we want and the results will swing our way."
Cowra skipper Mick Curtale said the loss stung, but the recent victory over Orange had lifted the teams spirit's ahead of the track into the off-season.
"Yeah, it was a big lift, obviously, we hadn't had a win in a while, coming on ten games in the premier league maybe even longer, so that win last game was big for us," Curtale said.
While the result was well short of what Cowra had hoped for, Curtale credited his team-mates with sticking it out and not losing heart despite the adversity.
"The boys have never lost heart, they keep turning up, they're putting in effort, we were meant to play in Cowra and we couldn't get a wicket prepared, so we were happy to have the game be moved, it just shows how commited these blokes are to playing and learning."
While the heat and the lost coin toss weighed heavily on Cowra, there were no excuses from Curtale.
"It was just poor performance, it's been a long two years and I think everything just came to a head today."
Despite the result, Curtale was optimistic about his rep side's fortunes, pointing to the fight shown in the high temperatures, especially by his younger team-mates.
"Kids like Darcy Callahan, that's only his second or third game, so that was the idea today, get a few of the younger blokes involved in the game," Curtale said.
it's just unfortunate that us blokes couldn't be in there to help him along, but it was good to get him and some of the others some time in the middle in a tough game like this."