By MATT ZELL

Gilgandra’s re-entry into the Brewery Shield competition after many years in the wilderness was a tough one with Narromine putting them on the back foot early and never letting up.

Narromine won the toss and elected to bat in very favourable batting conditions and got away to a flyer with the openers putting on 85 for the first wicket in even time.

Ben Hjort was able to make the breakthrough but the runs kept on piling up.

The Gil bowlers all toiled gamely but the hosts showed why they are three time premiers in the last four seasons with a brutal and dominant performance with the bat.

At the end of their innings they had amassed a whopping 7/343 with their skipper Doug Potter being particularly savage on anything too full or short to smash his way to 92 off just 66 balls.

Hugh Duncan ended up with 3/35, Ben Hjort 2/73 with Oska Brooker and Ash Hazelton picking up a wicket each.

Gilgandra’s run chase got off to the worst of starts with a lame Pete Rothwell being run out in the 2^nd over closely followed by skipper Jaimie Zell an over later.

Wickets began to fall at regular intervals with only Ash Hazelton (60) and Liam Zell (22) managing any resistance against the home side.

When their last wicket fell the scoreboard read ALL OUT 125 which meant a 218 run annihilation.

All players who attended should be congratulated on their efforts as they remained positive all day and with the availability of several big names in the upcoming matches Gilgandra are very confident of being very competitive in this competition.

What was particularly pleasing is that we had representation from 6 of the 9 teams in our local competition which holds us in good stead moving forward.

Gilgandra's next game of Brewery Shield is against Nyngan on Sunday 5 December and we hope to have harvest out of the way and a full strength team ready to fire.