Wests vow to keep pressure on rivals

SEAMER Dan Kearney says Wests are determined to find their killer instinct this summer as they come up against defending champions Sub Parks in today’s Townsville Cricket grand final rematch at Mick Downey Oval.

Wests finished the regular season in first place last summer before being on the wrong end of an eight-wicket thrashing in the grand final as Sub Parks claimed a premiership hat-trick.

Wests are off to a winning start this season, but it took an unbeaten half century from Tony Hampson to get them across the line in a one-wicket thriller against Brothers last weekend.

Kearney admitted Wests had developed a habit of making things harder for themselves, which he said would be their main focus against Sub Parks today.

“One of the things we reflected on was us making what should be pretty easy games to win a little bit difficult and that was probably where we came undone in the grand final last year too,” he said.

“We spoke about how we got the result that we came there to get (against Brothers), but we were pretty disappointed with the process and how we went about it.

“We’ll definitely be trying to approach things a little bit differently this year too and make sure that we’re really putting our foot down and trying to be a little bit more dominant.”

Sub Parks have come out firing for their title defence after claiming a double bonus point win over Norths last weekend – chasing down the 129-run target in just 21.4 overs.

Wests will be bolstered by the return of the club’s player of the year Jack Raffles today after he spent the Australian winter playing in the UK.

Townsville Cricket, Round 2: Today: Wests v Sub Parks at Mick Downey Oval; Wanderers v Brothers at Fred Jacobsen Oval. Play starts at 11.50am.