Preliminary matches were played on Saturday afternoon at Goolwa, Port Elliot, McLaren Vale and Mount Compass.

The winning teams then fronted at the unfamiliar time of 10am Sunday for the semi finals.

For many of these players, such an early start was, but a distant memory from their junior days.

The Port Elliot and Mount Compass clash got away on time, with Compass having the home side on the back foot right from the start.

Elliot’s innings never really got going, however their meagre score presented some problems for the Compass bats, who made rather heavy weather of reaching the target.

It was a different story in the other semi final, as a water malfunction at Goolwa forced the match to be shifted.

Thanks to the Victor Harbor club, their oval was made available and the match got underway about an hour late.

Here, the scoring was more in keeping with the expectations of this form of the game and Encounter Bay set the Aldinga boys a handy total to chase.

Despite some aggressive batting throughout, Aldinga was unable to keep their wickets intact long enough to chase down the total.

The grand final eventually commenced just after 2.30pm at Port Elliot.

Encounter Bay won their third toss in row and batted first.

Nash was able to restrict the scoring from his end, but Compass badly missed the guile of Binns, who was unable to play the final due to a previous engagement.

Edwards batted superbly at the top of the order, scoring freely with well timed shots to all parts of the ground.

He was well supported by Parry and their opening partnership of 61 set up the Bays’ innings.

Several missed chances cost Compass about 15 runs, which didn’t seem too bad at the time, but may have proved the difference in the end.

Compass kept up with the run rate early, but when big hitters Connor, East and Lewis were all out with less than half of the required runs scored and almost half the allotted overs gone, things began to look grim.