Ninan defiant as Stoneywood-Dyce reach crisis point

Former captain has belief but drop looms

Stoneywood-Dyce batsman George Ninan knows his side’s campaign has reached a crunch point.

The People’s Park club is bottom of the Eastern Premier Division after 10 straight defeats and, with six games remaining, it is going to take a remarkable reversal in fortunes for the winless club.

Former captain Ninan, however, insists all is not lost and is refusing to concede defeat in his team’s attempts to stay in the league.

Ninan, whose side hosts Heriot’s tomorrow, said: “Every game now is criticalandit almostdoesn’tmatter at this stage who we are playing as we simply have to win games or we are going down.

“We need a win to break the horrible run we are on and then, hopefully, wecanget another one. Butwith six games to go we know we need to do something quickly.

“I take encouragement from the factwehada goodtraining sessionon Tuesday and the players are still enjoying it and playing with a smile. We have to stay positive.”

It would be easy to write off a miserable campaign for the club but Ninan believes the team will reap the benefits long term following a campaign of short-term pain.

He said: “There’s no denying it has been tough for us but there have been games where we’ve been close to getting a win but it has eluded us.

“We’re a young side and the young lads in the team are learning the finer points of the game at this level. We’ve got to learn how to build an innings, develop partnerships and bowl the opposition out.

“We’ve done aspects of that at various points of the season but we haven’t managed to combine all three inonegame. I’mhopingthisweekend can be the one where we do put those pieces together.”

Stoneywood-Dyce will certainly have to improve on their heavy loss at Watsonians last week, when they were all out for 60.

Ninansaid:“Webowledreasonably well last weekend but we didn’t execute at all when we were batting. Although, to be fair, we came up against an exceptional bowling display from Matthew Brown.

“He wiped out our top order batsmen quickly and it really piled the pressure on and it was too much for us.”

George Ninan: Keeping the faith