Railways seek historic fourth title

History beckons for dominant Albany Cricket Association A-grade club Railways as they attempt to become only the second club in ACA history to win four straight premierships, when they face fierce rivals North County in Saturday’s decider at Hard North.

The Tigers, winner of the past three A-grade grand finals, will chase their fifth title in six seasons and aim to join Collingwood Park (2005-09) as teams to have won four successive flags.

It has been another brilliant season for the Tigers, led by captain Zane Marwick, as they claimed the minor premiership with only two losses to their name and progressed directly through to the title decider.

Marwick said, despite not playing last week, his side were fully prepared to chase a historic fourth flag.

“It has been an interrupted past two months but the guys have been working extremely hard and been doing extra sessions,” he said.

“The boys are up for the challenge and excited about potentially writing their names in the history books by winning four straight.

“We are definitely a new-look team but all the guys who have come in have fitted in well.”

The Tigers will recall young batsman Alex Pearce in place of Matt Angel and Marwick backed the teenager to perform.

“He was playing in our third team and just continued to make runs,” Marwick said.

“He’s only young but he thoroughly deserves his spot and gives us more batting strength.”

The Bulldogs make their first grand final appearance since 2014-15, when they were convincingly toppled by the Tigers by 157 runs.

The traditional rivals have squared off in four grand finals in the past seven seasons with the Tigers winning the last three encounters.

Bulldogs skipper Graeme Weinert backed his side to repeat their round 2 victory over the Tigers.

“We are confident we can match it with them,” he said. “We can draw off beating them in the first game and in the third game we bowled them out for 128 and nearly chased it down and we only had 10 that day.

“We always back ourselves when we’ve got our full side.

They’re obviously favourites to win but we have to just play like we did on the weekend.”

Weinert highlighted the wicket of Tigers counterpart Marwick as vital in their winning hopes and confirmed Fabian Bolton was likely to remain in the side while youngster Aiden Williss could be recalled.

In the minor grades, Mt Barker take on Manypeaks Gold in the B-grade final at Sounness Park, while in the C-grade Railways will clash with the Tigers at Tigerland.