Tara Murray
Melton’s struggles in the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association north-west continued on Saturday against Spotswood.
Winless so far, the Lions took on last season’s premiers, who were coming off their first loss of the season.
The Woodsmen bounced back in a big way and further cemented the Lions spot at the bottom of the table.
Lions coach Mitch Stephens said it was a disappointing performance by the group.
“They are obviously good and are the benchmark of the competition,” he said. “They put their foot down and really beat us.”
The Woodsmen made 4-290 to bat the Lions out of the game.
Stephens said while the Woodsmen batted well, they didn’t help themselves in the field.
“We need to take every chance,” he said. “We let slip four or five chances.
“That’s been a consistent theme the last few weeks. It’ll be a big focus moving forward.
“They took the opportunities we gave them.”
Rhys Berry took two wickets for the Lions.
Stephens said they knew it would be tough chasing that target but had set themselves the goal of trying to bat out the overs/
“We felt like we started well with Chris Hope and Ben MacRae and at a pretty good tempo,” he said.
“We wanted to show some fight in the batting and bat out our overs which is one of our KPIs. We fell well short.”
MacRae top scored with 33 as just four batters reached double figures.
Stephens said they threw some ideas around after the game about how they can start to get things going.
This week the first of the two-day clashes get underway, with the Lions facing Hoppers Crossing.
Stephens said he hoped the change of formats would kick start their season, saying they believed they were better suited to that format.
“We have to perform as a team and not rely on one or two players,” he said.
“We’re trying to make a focus on not relying on one or two batters to have to make all the runs. We’ve struggled with that so far.
