Down to business end of season for Coast’s clubs
FINALS season has descended on Gold Coast cricket, with all but the coast’s top cricketers to start playoffs on Saturday around the Glitter Strip.
In the Taper Premier League division 2, Palm Beach earned its place as minor premier, suffering only three losses throughout the season.
But its biggest challenge will come this weekend when it takes on Surfers Paradise, the only team of the three it lost to that has made the finals.
It was the club’s biggest loss of the season, too: an 85-run defeat in round 11 on home turf.
Bonogin Valley will be the team to beat in division 3, finishing in top position of the 18-team division to earn itself an extra day off while the competition’s third to sixth-placed teams head into elimination finals on Saturday.
In the Taper Community League, Palm Beach continued its domination across coast cricket, finishing minor premier in division 1 and 3 of the second-tier league, thrusting the club’s teams straight into the semifinals on Sunday.
Runaway Bay will come into finals in fine form in division 2 following two massive wins over Palm Beach (143 runs) and Broadbeach Robina (104 runs)
With one round remaining in Premier Division 1, the competition’s final four has all but been decided with Mudgeeraba Nerang, Helensvale Pacific Pines, Palm Beach and Broadbeach to face each other in two weeks’ time as two-day finals start.
It will be a campaign to watch for Broadbeach, which looked untouchable before a concussion ended club captain Trent Keep’s career.
The one-day grand final winner suffered a major slump after the final in round 15, going down by a shock 140 runs to the likely minor premier Mudgeeraba.
But sitting in first and fourth, the two sides will seemingly meet soon again in the semi-finals to start on March 18, while Palm Beach and Helensvale look to make up the second semi.
In the competition’s greatest transposition, 2021-22 premier Surfers Paradise is set to finish with the wooden-spoon unless the Demons can turn their luck against last season’s bottom finishers Queens in their final fight of the season.