BEST MATCH PERFORMANCES
Armidale Waratahs (The Tahs) | October 02, 2023
The definition of a great match performance can be difficult to pin down. You can make the guidelines statistical and that will often get you close. It can't just be batting or bowling or fielding but a combination of at least two of those three. In the modern day, the idiom also has to contain winning but that wasn't really considered in drawing up the list for Waratahs. In the end, the deciding factor was more the effect the performance had on the game and something of the heroic nature of the performance.
The ones chosen for this list performed amazing deeds across the course of a match, mostly of two days duration and no attempt has been made to try and rate them against each other. However, a few stand out.
IN the 1962-63 season, Geoff McDonald (#168) and Geoff Marshall (#156) dominated the B grade competition which Waratahs won, beating Dumaresq in the Final by a comfortable margin of 101 runs when the pair did what they had done several times during the season, taking the new ball and bowling unchanged to rout Dumaresq. Its no surprise that McDonald is mentioned three times on this list from that season alone. How do you pick between his 106 not out and 8-35 v de la Salle College in February or his match haul of 10-43 & 64 against YCW in the December. Perhaps, given that it was a semi-final, 79 & 5-23 v Tadcoop was the best. Marshall has two entries from that season as well (36, 51 & 5-66 v YCW in November and then his semi-final contribution of 58 & 7-34. It was almost a year later that he did much the same in A-Res grade with 108 not out and 6-47 v Public Service. IN 1962-63, McDonald and Marshall took 165 wickets between them and score 640 runs. McDonald left the club after that season but Marshall would go on to be one of the best juniors Waratahs has produced.
Waratahs v Tadcoop - B grade Semi-Final, 16th & 23rd March 1963
SHAMUS ROBERTSON (#629) burst onto the scene in 1991/92, in a season where Waratahs fielded no 2nd grade, so pathway to 1st grade was via 3rd grade. In February, he took 7-29 with the new ball v YCW - six of them bowled - and then on the second week of the match, flayed their bowlers with 160 batting at three. It was one of the more complete maulings an individual ever handed a Waratahs opponent.
Waratahs v YCW - 3rd grade, 15th & 22nd February 1992
TED CROTTY (#98), the sometimes wicketkeeper, sometimes opening bowler, sometimes batsman, did his own version of dominating an opponent in November 1958, being the driving force in B grade's one wicket outright victory over Dumaresq. Top scoring in both innings (119 & 29) as Waratahs just bested the Dumaresq men in both times they batted, he also claimed 9 wickets for the match (6-59 & 3-27).
Waratahs v Dumaresq - B grade, 1st & 8th November 1958
Among the A/1st grade performances, there are probably none better than ERIC SMITH's (#82) 81 & 5 and 6-80 & 4-56 v de la Salle College in September 1957, although on the basis of opposition, LAURIE COOPER's (#2) effort against the very strong Easts-II over Christmas/New Year of the 1952/53 season makes a compelling argument. Routed in the first innings, Easts took a slim lead with Cooper taking 4-36 and then on the second day, he opened the batting and blazed away for 56 before ripping through Easts with the new ball for the outright win with 6-40, all six of them bowled.
Waratahs v Easts-II - A grade, 20th December 1952 & 3rd January 1953
There are some bold efforts by the wicketkeeper batsmen on this list. STEVE HADFIELD (#524) probably shades the rest, opening the batting in the 1991-92 1st grade Semi-FInal against Hillgrove and making 63 of 146 and then taking a Waratahs best 6 catches in Hillgrove's meagre 97. Martin Campbell, Peter Morse Jason Kelleher and that journeyman of all trades, Mark Tanner, are also worthy entrants on the list which surprisingly, has no Ross Ridley.
Waratahs v Hillgrove - 1st Grade Semi-FInal, 14th & 15th March 1992
So many great players. So many great performances. Here's the complete list. Find your own highlights.
