The CYMS Cougars first-grade blues appear well and truly exorcised.
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The men in green and white returned to the RSL-Whitney Cup competition with a renewed energy and vigor and leveraged their young line-up to down second-placed Macquarie in the eleventh round on Saturday.
Thomas Nelson, who contributed 16 to his side's run total of 196 said the team had been reeling from an inability to field all their players at once in recent rounds.
"We've definitely been doing it tough the last couple of weeks, we've been missing a few blokes, Lachlan Strachan, who often scores a lot of runs at the top and Tom Coady, who's been away at the representative carnivals lately, we haven't been able to put our strongest possible team out on the park," Nelson said.
"Now we're hoping to get a roll on."
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CYMS elected to bat first and while the highest contribution was Sam Ward's 35 later in the line-up, no one left without pitching in once on deck.
Team captain Ben Knaggs departed for 30 after finding four boundaries, but returned with a vengeance as Macquarie attempted to chase down the CYMS total, taking four wickets for only allowing 19 runs.
"Knaggsy always leads from the front whether it's bat or ball and he's good in the field as well, Coady's a superstar in the making, so it's always good when he's around for us, he's had a good rep carnival and coming off that, we're hoping to see him keep doing well," Nelson said.
Jason Green, Myles Smith, Jack Fuller and Claude Beitz were all dismissed during Knagg's 6 overs, with all but Green going for a duck's egg.
Macquarie went all out for 110, with Green (23) and Ben Strachan (25) contributing the most with the bat.
While the win will no doubt improve CYMS confidence heading into their next round clash with the the ladder-leading RSL Colts, Nelson says the immediate focus for the young squad is to remain focused on the present.
"We try and play it week to week, we don't look too far ahead, we're still quite a young team," Nelson said.
"Obviously, Macquarie and Colts are going to be right up there, but if we put together our consistent batting performances, we'll go a long way to giving it a shake up."
CYMS and Macquarie now both share 43 points on the competition ladder, with CYMS coming out ahead and taking the second spot on for and against terms.
They'll next meet the RSL Colts in round 12, while Macquarie will take on the South Dubbo Hornets.