Onerahi skipper quietly confident

Onerahi Central skipper Andy McDowell believes his team  of solid and honest players have what it takes to maintain their top spot on the table heading into the last round of the Northland premier grade two-day cricket competition.
Having led since round one, Onerahi suffered their first defeat of the two-day championship, beaten by Maungakaramea in last weekend's shortened fourth-round match. Northern Districts opener Michael Parlane smashed an outstanding 102 not out, which helped Maungakaramea to a seven-wicket victory, after a sluggish batting effort from the competition leaders.
But McDowell said Onerahi's primary focus for the first day of the final round was to rectify last weekend's experience, and concentrate on getting an outright win to hang on to their prime position on the table.
"We started the two-day competition well but we were disappointed with our performance against Maungakaramea, which was largely due to a poor battling display," he said.
"We have a group of solid, honest players this season, and while we don't have any superstars we've got great team spirit. Hopefully we will be able to pick ourselves up after last week."
Onerahi go head-to-head with second-placed Kaipara Flats at Kaipara tomorrow, in a game which should be fairly even on paper, McDowell said.
Kaipara come into the match on the back of two solid wins over City and WBHS, but will be without key wicket-takers in this two-day competition, Jake Phillips and Tauseef Satti,  with opening batsman Brad Wilson, who was instrumental in his side's eight-wicket victory last weekend against the schoolboys, scoring a ton in the reduced-over clash.
The trio will instead line up for Northland to play Counties Manukau at Weymouth, in a two-day Brian Dunning Trophy match starting today, while Onerahi will reluctantly lose their skipper to the regional side.
"Although I really want to play for Northland, it's a bit of shame I can't be there on the first day of this match," he said.
"Brad, Jake and Taz [Satti] are big losses for Kaipara and they will be very reliant on the rest of the team to step up ... but they have a lot of good players."
 Onerahi had lost club professional and quality batsman Garth Anderson, who returned to South Africa due to personal reasons, but the side had a long batting line-up and would look to someone with plenty of experience to fill McDowell's shoes tomorrow, such as Jamie Burgess, McDowell said.
Lower down the points table, another battle is brewing as third-placed WBHS and City, in fourth, gear up to battle it out at Kensington Park to stay in the running for a possible final's berth.
While City had a convincing win over cellar-dwellers Kamo, the schoolboys will be looking to bolster their confidence again after their fall last weekend. In tomorrow's  other match, sixth-placed Kamo will host Maungakaramea, who  sit in fifth spot, just trailing City.
Two-day competition points after round four (with bonus points added): 1 Onerahi Central 49.56; 2  Kaipara Flats 44.73; 3  Whangarei Boy's High 1st XI 39.81; 4  City 38.58; 5  Maungakaramea 37.30; 6 Kamo 18.77.
Day one of round five is being played tomorrow due to the Northern Districts match with Central Districts at Cobham Oval today.