Taking on St Michaels with an under strength batting line up proved to be no obstacle for the Blues in the Twenty20 at Robertson Oval on Friday.

Brayden Ambler (42) and captain Jeremy Rowe (59) put on 80 for the first wicket to put their side in the box seat.

Contributions from Blake Harper (23) and Alex Jones (15 not out) helped them to 4-161 off their 20 overs.

Rowe had been looking for the Blues top order to fire and he certainly helped deliver that.

“It was definitely a good way to get us out of the blocks on Friday night and we managed to put together a pretty good total in 161,” Rowe said.

“At Robbo you still have to defend well as you get value for runs there and there was certainly no demons in the deck, it played like it had a fair few runs in it, so it was a really good effort to contain them to 113 off the 20.

“It was a good all-round performance.”

In response the Saints struggled to build partnerships.

Brendan Gale topped scored with 39 and Kyle Buckley made 27, but they were the only real contributors.

Terry Willis removed Gale before snaring Eric and Jared Koetz to finish with 3-17 off four overs and have the best figures as St Michaels finished on 8-113, 49 runs short of the target. 

However things didn’t start off in the same fashion for South Wagga up against Kooringal Colts in the one-dayer on Saturday.

Batting first at Harris Park, the Blues were in trouble before Jones steered them in the right direction once more.

After finishing unbeaten on 45 last week, Jones top scored for 49 at number five.

Jones came in a 4-57 but built nice partnerships with Willis (25) and Nathan Cooke (23) before the Blues were bowled out for 171.

Rowe was impressed with how they handed the tricky situation.

“It was a really smart and mature innings by Alex Jones,” he said.

“I thought he really dictated terms and batted exactly how he wanted to rather than coming in and having to bat one way or the other because of the scenario he walked into.

“We had a couple of really important knocks from Terry Willis and Nathan Cooke and even though they came in at a position where we were quite vulnerable it was a counterpunching type of approach as they scored quite quickly and put is in a position where we had a total to defend.”

Despite a promising start from openers Dave Bolton (29) and Daniel Perri (15), and another contribution from captain Keenan Hanigan (24), the Colts just managed to reach triple figures before being bowled out for 103 in 32 overs.

Darcy Irvine chipped in late to finish with 4-16 off four overs while Jones backed up his efforts with the bat, snaring two wickets including that of Hanigan.

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