Hutt River Dedication Cricket Club Willowfest 2014

Welcome To The
Principality of Hutt River
www.principality-hutt-river.org/sports

		Principality Sports Competitors! Hutt River Dedication Cricket Club

			WILLOWFEST - 2014

Royal Hutt River Dedication Cricket Club is the national cricket team of the Principality of Hutt River.
The team plays annually in the Willowfest Australian Cricket Club Championships
held in Mildura, Victoria, Australia in December each year.

E-MAIL Dedication

Learn more about:
Royal Hutt River Dedication Cricket Club

RHR Dedication’s Willowfest carnival in 2013 ended with the side taking out third placing in the B Grade competition, the team’s best result to date.
Lets hope that this year, the teams 10th year in the competition (6th year under the PHR Flag), will see that elusive 1st place trophy achieved???

CONGRATULATIONS!

HRH Prince Leonard congratulates the Dedication Cricket Club on reaching it's 10th anniversary of competition in the
Willowfest Tournament and 6 of those years playing under the PHR Flag as the "Royal Hutt River Dedication Cricket Club.

Reporting below thanks to Sir Geoffrey Pascoe KSOL

NEWS FLASH!

Royal Hutt River Dedication Cricket Club

WINNERS!

2014 Willowfest

Hutt River Dedication 2014 Squad Announced
23/12/2014

The 2014 Willowfest Carnival will be held from Dec 27 - Dec 30.

Royal Hutt River Dedication will enter this, their 10th Willowfest carnival still searching for their illusive maiden championship.

The squad for 2014 is as follows:

Geoff Pascoe (c)
Tyler Hankinson (vc)
Jarryd Mills (wk)
Joel McMahon
Jake Sluiter
Joel Thomas
Haydn Falconer
Bill Barber
Kale McBain
Adam Burke
Todd McCarthy
Ian McMahon
Jason Harris

2014 Draw/Result Table as follows:

Date	Team	Vs	Team	RESULT
Saturday 27th December Night game at Red Cliffs' Quandong Park	Royal Hutt River Dedication	Vs	Southern Binjarra	RHR Dedication CC - Defeat Southern Binjarra by 5 Wickets
Sunday 28th December	Royal Hutt River Dedication	Vs	St. Columns	RHR Dedication CC 1/123 - Defeat St Columbs 7/117
Sunday 28th December	Royal Hutt River Dedication	Vs	Mildura West	Mildura West CC 4/156 - Defeat RHR Dedication CC 8/154
Monday 29th December	Royal Hutt River Dedication	Vs	Willowfest XI	RHR Dedication CC 2/95 - Defeat Willowfest XI 91
Tuesday 30th December	Royal Hutt River Dedication	Vs	Kangarilla	RHR Dedication CC 5/101 def. Kangarilla 97

Game #1
Hutt River Dedication Vs Southern Binjarra
27/12/2014

Royal Hutt Hutt River Dedication started Willowfest 2014 with a bang, destroying Southern Binjarra in a night game at Red Cliffs' Quandong Park.
Upon arriving at the ground, the Dedication squad were greeted with an extremely green pitch, differentiated from the rest of the outfield only by the white crease lines.

Southern Binjarra got off to a good start with the bat, with the runs flowing freely.
Before long however, opening bowlers Jake Sluiter and Joel McMahon both got breakthroughs, and the runs started to dry up.
Bill Barber came on at first change and appeared to be bowling well, until he had to leave the field to 'change socks'.
Thankfully, Joel Thomas, bowling at the other end, appeared perfectly comfortable in just a single pair of socks, ripping through the middle order in his first game for Dedication in five years. Thomas' bowling was a fearsome sight to see, with the ball jumping all over the place and making the batsmen tremble in their boots.
Perhaps an extra pair of socks would have made their boots more sturdy.
Southern Binjarra ended up all out for just 95.

Hutt River's innings got off to a blistering start. Haydn Falconer was daring the fielding team to catch him, hitting repetitive boundaries over the heads of the 3 fieldsmen placed at cow corner. At the other end, Jarryd Mills was perfecting his defensive strokes. Eventually, Mills' defensive strokes failed him, however, bringing first gamer Jason Harris to the crease.
Harris was in fine touch, racing to 20 and prompting Bill Barber, now wearing at least two pairs of socks, to guarantee a dedication win.
Unfortunately, Harris was unlucky to be caught after the ball ricocheted off a close-in fieldsman, and Barber came to the crease determined to see his guaranteed victory realised.

Barber batted stoically for a while, but simply could not defend against a full toss on middle stump.
This brought Dedication to five wickets down, with over 20 runs still to get.
Memories of past collapses made the Hutt River fans start to get nervous, but the steady hands of Joel McMahon and Jake Sluiter guided Dedication to an easy 5 wicket victory.

Game #2
Hutt River Dedication Vs St. Columbs
28/12/2014

The second day of Willowfest 2014 got off to a good start, with Dedication winning the toss and sending St Columbs in to bat.
St Columbs got off to a solid, though not spectacular start, consistently maintaining a scoring rate of around six runs an over.
The Hutt River fielding was again extremely tight, making the batsmen earn every run.
Jake Sluiter put down another tough chance off his own bowling, but took his third caught and bowled chance for the tournament
after watching two other fielders standing still watching the ball in the air.
This was a team bowling effort, with every bowler bar Phil Barker taking a wicket, keeping St Columbs to 117 from their 20 overs.

The Dedication run chase got off to a less than ideal start, with Haydn Falconer dismissed for just 4 runs.
From there, however, it was clear sailing for the Hutt River batsmen, with Phil Barker and Jakob Sluiter putting on an unbeaten 113 for the second wicket.
The partnership started off with some good running between wickets, but Barker's energy drained like water going through a sieve,
and before long Sluiter realised he was going to have to hit boundaries to score runs.
Sluiter wound up, hitting a series of massive boundaries, guiding Hutt River to an easy 9 wicket win.

Game #3
Hutt River Dedication Vs Mildura West CC
28/12/2014

Hutt River made their way across to the Mildura West home ground to take on the Westie Toads for the second Twenty20 of day 2.
Hearing rumours of the ferocity of the Dedication bowling attack, West recruited a cup grade batsman to bolster their B-grade team.
For first time this tournament, the batsman dared to play an attacking shot against Hutt River's extremely aggressive first-ball field, hitting Kale McBain to the cover boundary.

Unfortunately, Hutt River's fielding effort this game was a step below what had been seen in previous games, with cup grade opening batsman Tom Holmes dropped twice on his way to an unbeaten 87. Many other mistakes in the field, along with two sixes in the dying overs against Geoff Pascoe let West make their way to 156 from their 20 overs.

After their successful run chase in the morning, Dedication were hopeful of getting another win. Joel McMahon and Adam Burke put together a solid 44 run 2nd wicket partnership,
before Burke was dismissed for 20. This brought the in form Jake Sluiter to the crease.
Both Sluiter and McMahon looked in fine touch, until Sluiter called a suicidal single, resulting in McMahon's dismissal.
When Sluiter was dismissed for 24, things were looking shaky, and two more quick wickets had the Dedication fans' hearts in their throats.
Tyler Hankinson, however, gave a remarkable impression of a batsman, and combined with Jarryd Mills to run far more singles than should have been humanly possible.

With two overs to go, Hutt River dared to hope for a victory, but Tyler Hankinson celebrated a little early, giving a jump and a fist pump on hitting the last ball of the penultimate boundary for four. Dedication needed 11 runs from the last over for a tie, and some cheeky running by Hankinson and Joel Thomas brought that down to needing three runs off the final delivery. Unfortunately, Thomas could only manage a single off the final ball, resulting in a crushing two run loss.

Royal Hutt River Dedication - Defeated by winners by 9 wickets!

Game #4
Hutt River Dedication Vs Willowfest XI
29/12/2014

After a heartbreaking loss to end day two, Hutt River came out determined to make amends in their preferred 50-over format.
Dedication again sent the opposition in to bat, and immediately made their presence felt. Joel McMahon took three early wickets to have the opposition at 3/21.
At that point, however, some sloppy fielding let the Willowfest XI put on some decent runs. Four dropped catches, including yet another to Joel Thomas, had coach Ian McMahon furious.
The lack of concentration in the field began to show, with the team taking five attempts to complete a successful silent over.

In his sixth over, Joel McMahon kicked it up a gear.
The Willowfest XI were travelling reasonably smoothly at 4/59, but four quick wickets - one to Haydn Falconer and three to McMahon - had them in real trouble
at 8/59. Joel McMahon finished off his 10 over spell fiercely, taking 4/0 from his last 25 deliveries.
A final wicket partnership of 27 added a bit of respectability to the Willowfest XI score, much to the relief of Jarryd Mills, who was worried he wasn't going to get a decent chance to bat.
Joel McMahon finished with Dedication record bowling figures of 7/19.

The start of Hutt River's batting innings nearly added a late nomination for the 'best fights' when Jarryd Mills believed he was not going to be given the opportunity to open the batting.
Mills did eventually open up with Kale McBain, who set about batting in his customary manner of trying to smash everything over midwicket.
McBain was soon dismissed for 16, made up of four boundaries. This brought Geoff Pascoe to the crease for the first time this tournament.
The Pascoe/Mills partnership appeared to be sailing smoothly, until Mills let his simmering resentment of Pascoe for a misfield he was allocated on day one boil over,
calling Pascoe through for a suicidal run, resulting in Pascoe being run out for 15.

The remainder of the run chase was fairly straightforward, with Mills and Jakob Sluiter batting for their averages, guiding Hutt River home to an 8-wicket victory in 27 overs.

Hutt River Dedication will be playing for the Willowfest title on the final day, after another win on day 3.
A huge crowd is expected at aero 1 tomorrow morning to witness potential history in the making.

Game #5
Hutt River Dedication Vs Willowfest XI
30/12/2014

Hutt River went into the final day of Willowfest 2014 needing a win to take home the title.
Whilst the team was quietly confident, final day performances from previous years lingered in everyone's memories, bringing more than a few nerves.

For the fifth time this week, Hutt River bowled first. After an early wicket, the Kangarilla batsmen started to look dangerous, moving quickly to 1/43.
At this point, however, Haydn Falconer took the ball, ripping through the Kangarilla top order with his strange mix of pace and 'spin.'
The Hutt River catching was impeccable, with two screamers to Joel McMahon at gully and a rare successful catch to Joel Thomas highlighting a strong catching performance.
By the time Falconer finished his spell with 4/20, the Kangarilla innings was looking shaky.

Tensions in the Dedication camp threatened to explode when Jake Sluiter let the ball roll through his legs on the boundary off the bowling off arch nemesis Phil Barker,
but Barker was too focused on the victory to let his anger boil over.
The innings was finished off by wicket keeper Jarryd Mills (2/17) and Joel Thomas (2/0), with Thomas taking the last wicket by bowling full pace at a child.

The Hutt River run chase started off in the worst possible way, with Jarryd Mills dismissed on the first ball of the innings.
Mills' dismissal was followed quickly by that of Tyler Hankinson for just one run.
When Joel McMahon and Jake Sluiter were both dismissed with the score on 25, Dedication fans feared a repeat of the teams' collapses from previous years.

Bill Barber and Jason Harris were building a solid partnership for the fifth wicket, when Harris lobbed a catch straight to the fielder at mid on.
Much to the relief of the Dedication camp, the catch was dropped, and Harris went on to make a determined 36.
He was dismissed with the score on 89, but by that time he and Barber had done their jobs.
Haydn Falconer came in for a quick seven runs, leaving Bill Barber to hit a boundary to bring up the win.

Visit the 2014 10th Anniversary Awards page:

(PHOTOS BELOW!)

2014 Willowfest Campaign

2014 was the year!
For the first time in 10 years, Hutt River have taken out the B-grade Willowfest title, with a five wicket win on day 4.

The 2014 Willowfest presentation dinner saw one of the closest races for the Sovereign's MDP award in Dedication history.
Jakob Sluiter took an early lead after the first two games, with his 72* in game two garnering him the lion's share of the votes.
Joel Thomas also took some early votes due to some tight bowling on the first two days.
Despite not getting huge numbers of early votes, both Joel McMahon (7 wickets on day 3) and Haydn Falconer (5 wickets on day 4) were always going to be in the running.

Going into the final round, Jake Sluiter was still holding onto his lead, but Falconer's 5 wicket haul, along with some 2 and 1-vote performances in earlier games, was enough to get him over the line.

The other major Dedication award - the much less sought after Horse's Arse award - was also an extremely close race.
Reflecting a great year for the team, this year's award was won with a record low number of points, and for the first time ever, a player (Joel McMahon) went a whole tournament without accruing a single point.

In the end, thanks to some tough dropped catches and a shocking misfield on the final day, the Horse's Arse trophy ended up in the hands of Jakob Sluiter.