Orange City and CYMS clash in Friday night’s second Royal Hotel Cup semi-final in a bid to earn the right to face Lithgow in next week’s decider, reigniting a fierce play-offs rivalry born several seasons ago.
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Orange City and CYMS never looked like missing out on the decider in Orange District Cricket Association’s inaugural Twenty20 tournament in 2012-13.
The Warriors won that grand final easily and backed up the performance a month later in the long-form grand final, once again against CYMS.
Since then, the two sides have faced off in three more play-offs games, all of which have gone down to the wire. CYMS have prevailed in two, Orange City in one.
“It almost seems inevitable we’ll play CYMS in a semi-final or grand final at some stage during every season, there is a pretty strong rivalry there,” Orange City T20 skipper Shaun Grenfell said.
“There’s plenty of respect there though, from both sides I assume but certainly from our perspective.
“We enjoy playing CYMS in these sudden death games, it’s always good, hard cricket and I’d like to think those games bring out the best in us.
“We’re obviously hoping that’s the case on Friday.”
“There’s certainly a rivalry, we love playing Orange City no matter the situation,” CYMS skipper Hamish Finlayson agreed.
“Both sides are always confident going in and that always provides pretty exciting cricket.”
Once again, confidence is something neither side will be short on in Friday’s penultimate game, and it doesn’t just come from this summer.
CYMS and Orange City have easily been the most consistent teams since the Royal Hotel Cup became a T20 tournament, although both have only claimed one title compared to Cavaliers’ two.
CYMS boasts a winning record of 77 per cent while Orange City’s is just over 70 and neither side has missed a finals series since that first season in 2012-13.
“There you go, I would’ve said considering Cavaliers have won two titles they’d be better than both of us,” Grenfell said when informed of his side’s numbers.
“We’ve certainly enjoyed playing this form of cricket. We’d love to get through to the grand final and try our hand against Lithgow.
“But the focus has to be CYMS and Friday night. It’ll be tough, we need to focus on the basics and when momentum comes our way we need to hold onto it.”
“Both sides have earned the right to be confident, for sure,” Finlayson said, reflecting on the two sides’ records.
“So much of Twenty20 cricket is executing the simple things like taking your catches, running well between the wickets.
“Hopefully we can get the win, I’m confident we’ve got the ability to.”
Friday’s game kicks off at 6.30pm at Wade Park and will be live scored via MyCricket.
Matt Findlay
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
Formerly a sports specialist, I'm based at Orange and shift between wide-spread range of subjects here and, often, across the entire Central West region of NSW as well. I have almost a decade of experience in the media and marketing industries both here in Australia and internationally, along with journalism I have experience in content strategy, brand development, and digital and social media. Along the way, I've been fortunate to win a handful of media awards and be nominated for several others too.
