The Cattle Dogs easily accounted for Orange on Saturday before chasing down 220 against Mudgee yesterday to secure their place in the Western Premier League finals, and put them in good stead to take out the President’s Cup.

“We’ve become a lot more professional over the past two seasons,” Blue Mountains skipper Andy Killion said. “We work hard and it’s good to see the results coming. It was pretty tough out there [today], but chasing 220 is a massive plus for us.”

Making the win more impressive, Blue Mountains were without regular opening bowlers Chris Boothroyd and James Heath, both injured.

Mudgee skipper Jacob Edmonds won the toss and elected to bat, with James O’Brien and Steve Knight showing why they have represented Western Zone several times in recent years.

O’Brien batted the entire 50 overs, being dismissed on the last ball of the innings, for 92, while Knight battered 89 as the pair put on 167 for the second wicket, leading their team to a defendable 220.

However, the Cattle Dogs made few mistakes in the chase, passing the total just four wickets down.

Alex Crowther led the charge, scoring 79 while Pat Hill added a valuable 43 and Sam Trankle remained 24 not out.

“We used to be a bit of a farce coming to these things, but it’s great to see the improvement,” Killion said.

“Young Alex did a wonderful job and Sam Trankle got red inks all weekend. More so with our bowling though, without our two best bowlers, the boys really stepped up and did the job.”

Edmonds struggled to find a reason behind the loss, and ended up landing on execution.

“I guess it’s not quite there,” he said.

“We bowled too many wides and dropped a couple of catches, but I thought it was a pretty good performance really. Credit to the Mountains, they came here to play.”